Well-weighed Syllables: Elizabethan Verse in Classical Metres [1 ed.] 0521205301, 9780521205306

Citation preview

Well-weighed syllables Elizabethan verse in classical metres

DEREK ATTRIDGE Lecturer in the Department of English Southampton University

C A M B R I D G E U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

Published by the Syndics of the Cam bridge University Press Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London n w i 2DB American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, N ew York, n .y . 10022 © C a m b rid g e U n iversity Press 1974

Library of Congress Catalogue Card N um ber: 74-80362 is b n

: o 521 20530 1

First published 1974

M ade and printed in Great Britain by William Clowes & Sons, Limited, London, Beccles and Colchester

CONTENTS

Preface vii P A R T ONE:

THE

Introduction i

ELIZABETHAN LATIN

UNDERSTANDING

1 Problems of Latin prosody The nature o f quantity The reading o f Latin verse 2 T h e Elizabethan pronunciation o f Latin Historical developments Tense and lax vowels in the Elizabethan pronunciation 3 T he Elizabethan reading of Latin verse The delivery o f verse The scansion o f verse 4 Latin prosody in the Elizabethan grammar school The teaching o f Latin prosody ‘A Shorte Introduction o f Grammar'’ ‘Prosodia ’ : accent ‘ Prosodia ’ : quantity 5 Vowel-length, quantity and accent Vowel-length and quantity Quantity and accent 6 Continental discussions of Latin quantity PART

TWO:

ENGLISH

OF

METRE

VERSE

AND

CLASSICAL

7 Attitudes towards accentual verse ‘A playne and simple manner o f wryting'1 Roger Ascham: the humanist response ‘ The rakehellye route o f our ragged rymers ’ ‘Artificial Verses’

7 7 13 21 21 26 30 32 37 41 41 45 53 61 69 69 72 78 METRE

89 89 93 100 105

CONSENTS

108

‘A straunge metre’ ‘A delight to the mindes’

8

9

10

h i

114 114

The quantitative movement - causes Renaissance attitudes to art Classical and Biblical precedents Continental influences The quantitative movement - magnitude Geographical and chronological extent The Elizabethan experiments: a survey The quantitative movement - characteristics ‘ Certaine Lawes and rules o f Quantities’ The penultimate rule ‘Preelection in the first Poetes ’ Quantity by orthography What was quantity ?

PART

THREE:

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

ii9 121 !25 !25

129 136 138 143 152

158 l6o THEORIS

II

165

12

Uncompromising imitation - Richard Stanyhurst Scholarship and sensitivity - Sir Philip Sidney Sidney’s quantitative theory Sidney’s quantitative practice Sidney’s quantitative poems *3 ‘Our new famous enterprise’ - Spenser, Harvey and Fraunce Spenser and Harvey Abraham Fraunce 14 Four approaches to quantitative verse The Stanyhurst approach The Spenser1Harvey approach The Sidneian approach The accentual approach The sapphic x5 Theory and compromise - Puttenham and Campion George Puttenham Thomas Campion

173 x73

Epilogue Bibliography Index

177 184 188 188 192 x95 x95

196 198 208 211 217 217 219 228 237 251

PR E F A C E

I should like to thank the m an y friends, teachers, and colleagues w ho have been o f assistance in m anifold w ays during the successive stages o f m y w ork on this subject, and to express in p a rticu la r m y indebtedness to Sidn ey A llen , John R athm ell, Peter Parsons, and A n n a A ttrid ge, w ith ou t whose generous efforts this book w ou ld not even exist, and to all those especially J erem y Prynne, Joh n Stevens, C atherin e In g, Jean R obertson, and F ran k Prince - whose com m ents on earlier versions h ave ensured th at how ever m an y faults I have failed to eradicate, they are less num erous and serious than they m ight have been. T h e book has greatly benefited, too, from the care­ ful editorial attention it has received from C am b rid ge U n iv er­ sity Press. I am also grateful to those w ho m ade it financially possible to u ndertake this research: the Senate o f the U n iv er­ sity o f N a ta l, the G en eral Board o f the Faculties o f C am bridge U n iversity, the M aster and Fellow s o f C lare C ollege, C am bridge, and the G overn in g B o dy o f Christ C h u rch , O xford. T h e system o f references I have used is as follow s: full details o f works m entioned are not given in the text, but sufficient inform ation (usually the au thor’s nam e and the date o f p u blication) is provided to enable the reader to refer to the a lp h ab etically-arran ged b ib lio grap h y. References to E liza ­ bethan w ritings on p oetry are, w henever possible, to G . G re g o ry S m ith ’s Elizabethan Critical Essays (London, 1904), cited throughout as ‘ S m ith ’ . Passages in L a tin are translated in footnotes, but, as the lack o f cla rity in the original is sometimes the point b eing dem onstrated, the translations do not constitute a co m p letely satisfactory substitute. Q uotations from sixteenthVll

PREFACE

and seventeenth-century sources follow the original spelling, except that abbreviated forms have been expanded, the use o f u and v, i and j has been regularised, and a few obvious p rinting errors have been corrected. D .A . Southam pton, 1974.

Introduction

Now, o f versifying there are two sorts, the one Auncient, the other M oderne: the Auncient marked the quantitie o f each silable, and according to that framed his verse; the Moderne observing onely number (with some regarde o f the accent), the chiefe life o f it standeth in that lyke sounding o f the words, which wee call Ryme. W hether o f these be the most excellent, would beare many speeches. T h e Auncient (no doubt) more fit for Musick, both words and tune observing quantity, and more fit lively to expresse divers passions, by the low and lofty sounde o f the well-weyed silable. The latter likewise, with hys Rym e, striketh a certaine musick to the eare: and, in fine, sith it dooth delight, though by another way, it obtaines the same purpose: there beeing in eyther sweetnes, and wanting in neither majestie. Truely the English, before any other vulgar language I know, is fit for both sorts. (Smith, I, 204-5) S id n e y ’s scrupulous apportionm ent, in his Apologie fo r Poetrie, o f eq u al praise to the tradition al English m anner o f w ritin g verse an d to the im itation o f classical metres in English, strikes the m odern reader - as it m ust have struck most readers from a d ecad e after its p u blication in 1595 to the present - as astonishingly over-generous to the latter species o f verse. Sidney him self p la yed a far from m inor role in the advan ce to m aturity and greatness o f English verse in the native m etrical tradition d urin g the last quarter o f the sixteenth century, and none o f the experim ents in classical metres o f the period, from his or any other pen, provides the slightest challenge to that achievem ent. T h is ju d g em e n t o f S id n ey’s is, how ever, only one o f the p u zzlin g m anifestations o f a literary m ovem en t w hich, in the m a n y accounts o f it in com m entaries on E lizabeth an poetry and in separate studies, is ch aracteristically discussed in a tone o f

INTRODUCTION

perplexed bafflem ent, often coupled w ith a sense o f m odern superiority to such folly. W h y should so m an y writers, am on g them poets o f such distinction as Sidney, Spenser and C am p ion , have devoted so m uch tim e and effort to an enterprise w hich held out such slender hopes o f success ? A n d even m ore p u zzlin g, w h y should the results o f their experim ents have been presented w ith such evident satisfaction, and received w ith approbation in so m any quarters, w hen, in contrast to the verse they and others were producin g in tradition al accen tual metres, it is so paten tly w eak ? W h y, too, should so m uch o f the E lizabeth an theoretical and critical w ritin g on literary topics (as a glan ce at G regory Sm ith’s collection o f critical essays w ill indicate) revolve around the question o f quan titative versifying ? T o find the solutions to these and other problem s posed by the quantitative m ovem ent it is necessary to consider in some detail the background to the w hole enterprise, for it is im poss­ ible to tell from the experim ents alone, or from the discussions that surround them , exactly w h at these m en - and at least one w om an - thought they were doing. W e need to kn ow ju st w hat an educated E lizabeth an took to be the m etre o f a L atin poem , and this means we need to kn ow how he pronounced the in dividual words, how he delivered the lines o f verse, and how he had been taught L atin , and in p articu lar L a tin prosody, at school. It w ill also be useful to know w h a t he w ou ld have learned from the prom inent classical scholars o f his d ay if he consulted their works. P art O n e deals w ith this backgrou nd , after a b rie f consideration o f the present state o f our kn ow ledge about L atin m etre. T h e argum ent in P art T w o is based on the conclusions reached in P art O n e, and takes the discussion into the realm o f English poetry. I have tried to show w h y the prospect o f English verse in classical metres held such tem p ta­ tions for the sixteenth-century poet, and w h y the results seemed far m ore successful to m an y am ong his im m ediate audience than they have to later generations; and I have given an account o f the frequently m isunderstood theoretical w ritings, con centra­ ting p articu larly on those features w hich com m entators have found hard to explain. T his p art also includes a chronological survey o f the English experim ents, largely to give an idea o f the 2

INTRODUCTION

hold w h ich the m ovem ent gained in the E lizabeth an literary w orld . In P art T h re e the in dividu al contributors are discussed, the m ore im portant figures separately, and the others grouped ro u g h ly into four schools, accordin g to their approach to the p rob lem o f naturalising classical metres. A lth ou gh the book as a w hole is not organised ch ronologically, I have attem pted in the final ch ap ter and the epilogue to give some idea o f the ch an ging in tellectu al clim ate at the end o f the cen tury w hich resulted in the v irtu a l abandonm ent o f q uan titative experim entation. A lth o u g h I have m ade some value-judgem ents on the verse under consideration, this has never been m y prim e ob jective; most o f the verse is, b y present standards, unquestionably b ad b u t it is for this reason that I believe a study o f it has w ider repercussions on our understanding o f E lizabeth an literature, and o f late sixteenth-century aesthetic tendencies in general, than m a y at first sight seem to be the case. T h e obstacles to the full app reciation o f the art o f an earlier age are often most clearly evident — and hence most availab le for confrontation and, i f possible, sym pathetic consideration - in the works w hich to us seem the least successful o f that age. I hope to show that an exam in ation o f these experim ents and the theoretical w ritings w h ich surround them reveals an understanding o f m etre w hich is the direct result o f R enaissance hum anism , and in particu lar its edu cation al program m e, and w hich provides an exceptionally clear exam ple o f some o f the tendencies o f sixteenth-century aesthetic th ou gh t most foreign to m odern taste. T h is conception o f m etre is also w orth studying as a factor in the developm ent o f English versification from the stiff jo g ­ trot o f p ou lter’s m easure and fourteeners in the w ork o f G ooge and T u rb e rv ile to the fluid grace o f the late E lizabeth an lyrics, from the end-stopped regu larity o f the pentam eters in the Mirror f o r Magistrates to the beautiful variety o f Spenser, D a n iel and D rayton and the expressive forcefulness o f D onne, and from b lan k verse as a blun t instrum ent w ielded b y Sackville and N orton to a superb tool cap ab le o f alm ost an y effect in Shakespeare’s hands. Its p art in this achievem ent was a n ega­ tive one, for it was an attitude w h ich existed as an obstacle to the flow ering o f the E lizab eth an poetic genius, and it was only /

3

INTRODUCTION

v w hen it had been supplanted th at E nglish poetry co u ld reach full m atu rity; b ut it is no accident th at both the ch ie f architects o f the new m ode o f w ritin g - Sid n ey and Spenser - should have faced in their ow n experim ents the shortcom ings o f quan titative verse, and the conception o f m etre w h ich la y behind it, before going ahead w ith their successful attem p t to base English verse on the phonetic properties o f the livin g lan gu age around them - thus taking up a tradition descended from C h au cer, b ut larg ely lost sight o f since W ya tt, and la yin g new foundations for a w a y o f w ritin g p oetry w h ich has only recently been challenged.

4

P A R T ONE

T he Elizabethan understanding of Latin metre

1 Problems of Latin prosody

Since w e shall find in the succeeding chapters that the average edu cated E lizab eth an had a very p ecu liar notion o f w h a t L a tin m etre w as, it w ill be p ru den t to begin our investigation w ith a b rie f look at present ideas on the subject, i f for no other reason than to forestall, b y show ing how m an y problem s rem ain to be solved, a n y un w arran ted feeling o f superiority on the p art o f the tw en tieth -cen tu ry reader. It w ill also be useful to give at the outset a sketch o f w h at is know n ab o u t L a tin prosody, and to establish the senses in w hich some technical terms are to be used. The nature o f quantity

C lassical L a tin verse is based on an in itial categorisation o f all syllables into two groups. T hese two types o f syllable are arran ged in predeterm ined patterns to m akes lines o f verse. T h e classification o f syllables is not according to stress, or a ccen t,1 as in most English verse, b ut accordin g to quan tity, and one o f the central questions around w hich m uch discussion has revolved and still revolves is sim ply, ‘ W h a t is q u a n tity ? ’ T o those not accustom ed to close exam ination o f m etrical and p h on o logical m atters - and this includes the R om ans and m an y tw en tieth -cen tu ry readers o f L a tin as w ell as the E lizabeth ans — 1 Because the English accent is, and the classical Latin accent in all probability was, a stress accent, I have tended to use these two terms interchangeably, except when it has been necessary to distinguish between the prominence of one syllable over others (accent) and that particular method o f achieving this prominence used in languages like English and German (stress). (Fortunately, the further problems posed b y the nature o f stress itself need not concern us, though it should perhaps be noted that pitch, duration and intensity all play a part, probably in that order o f importance - see Lehiste, 1970, ch. 4, for a survey o f recent work on the subject.)

'

7

ELIZABETH AN

UNDERSTANDING \

OF

LATIN

METRE

the traditional definition explains everything in a very sim ple fashion: ‘ q u a n tity 5 refers to the duration o f syllables, a long syllable taking tw ice the tim e o f a short syllable, or thereabouts, in pronunciation, so that lines o f verse can be constructed w ith patterns (or tem poral rhythm s) o f longs and shorts. T h u s Edw ards, in his introduction to The Eton Latin Grammar o f 1826, states: By q u a n t i t y , then, we are to understand the time actually and practically devoted, in the act o f speaking, to the enunciation o f a syllable: thus, a syllable uttered quickly, as to time, is said to be short - but a syllable, uttered slowly, is said to be long. (p. viii) E very sixteenth-century L a tin gram m ar contain ed a sim ilar definition, though w ithou t so m uch emphasis on w h at ‘ actu a lly ’ and ‘ p ra ctic a lly 5 occurred (a significant omission, as w e shall see), and m odern textbooks also often assume that q u an tity is sim ply a m atter o f duration. T h e origins o f this explan ation o f q uan tity are, o f course, G reek and R o m an ; Z irin (1970) gives a useful survey o f the statements by ancient gram m arians and discusses the two w ays o f looking at q uan tity that developed side b y s id e : th at o f the metrici, w ho were concerned only w ith two kinds o f syllable, short and lon g; and that o f the rhythmici, w ho, b y assigning timevalues to the constituents o f syllables, found a w hole scale o f duration al values (pp. 4 2-54). T hese two attitudes could never be reconciled, since the arbitrariness o f divid in g the continuous durational scale into two could not be accounted for, and, in fact, by adding up tim e-units, some ‘ sh o rt5 syllables em erge as longer than some ‘ lo n g ’ syllables. T h o u g h this contradiction in the duration al theory suggests th at ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh o rt’ syllables are distinguished b y some other criterion, none o f the ancient gram m arians w en t further than poin tin g out the contradiction; and the R enaissance inherited the id ea o f q uan tity as som ething concerned p u rely w ith tim e. T o appreciate the unsatisfactoriness o f this theory, it w ill be necessary to look first at the rules for determ ining the q uan tity o f a syllable. T hese rules rely on a classification o f every vow el as either long or short; how ever, since the difference betw een the two forms o f a L a tin vow el was one o f q u a lity as w ell as 8

PROBLEMS

OF

LATIN

PROSODY

d uration (see A llen , 1965, pp. 4 7 -9 ), and this is clearly also the case w ith the so-called ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh o rt’ forms o f English vow els, I have preferred to use the terms ‘ tense ’ and ‘ lax ’ w hen referring to the phonetic properties o f vow els in either la n g u a g e .1 T h is w ill have the ad van tage o f leavin g ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh o rt’ free to be used o f the classification o f vow els for prosodic purposes even w hen this classification bears no relation to the actual p ron u n ciation o f vow els as either tense or lax. Sim ilarly, I shall use the terms ‘ h e a v y ’ and ‘ lig h t’ (follow ing A llen , 1965, pp. 9 1-2 ) to refer to the two kinds o f syllabic q u an tity that actually existed as a phonetic p roperty in classical L atin , and ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh o rt’ to refer to the two types o f syllable distinguished on a th eoretical level according to the rules o f prosody (in both L atin verse and English im itations), w hether or not there is a phonetic distinction in the pronunciation o f the syllables. T h e trad itional account o f q u an tity in L a tin verse, w hich is still tau gh t today (see R a ven , 1965, pp. 23-5, for a detailed exposition), is, in outline, as follows (in the exam ples, only long vow els have been m a rk e d ): (i) a syllable containing a long vowel or diphthong is long (:mbs, vae); (ii) a syllable containing a short vowel followed by a ‘ double consonant’ (x or z ) or by two consonants (in the same or different words), h being discounted, is long (nox, first syllable o f culpa, first syllable o f et dona) ; unless the consonants consist o f a plosive (b, c, d, g, p, t ) followed in the same word, or, in compound words, in the same part o f a word, by a liquid (I or r), in which case the syllable is short or long (first syllable o f patrius, second syllable o f adlacrimo - but the first syllable is long since it constitutes one part o f a com­ pound w ord); (iii) all other syllables are short. Syllables o f type (i) are trad ition ally described as being ‘ long 1 A full description o f the phonetic differences between tense and lax vowels is given b y Chomsky and H alle (1968, pp. 68-9, 324-6), but for present purposes it will be sufficient merely to give some exam ples: the vowels in bean, bane, balm, pawn, bone, boon are tense and the vowels in bin, Ben, bat, bun, pot, put are lax. I have followed Chomsky and H alle in regarding diphthongs phonologically as tense vowels (an equivalence implicit in the bracketing o f ‘ long vowels or diphthongs ’ in traditional accounts o f Latin quantity and accent).

9

ELIZABETHAN

UNDERSTANDING

OF

LATIN

METRE

b y n a tu re ’ ; those o f type (ii) as ‘ lo n g b y p ositio n ’ . It w ill be obvious that the theory o f q u an tity as duration stems from these rules, especially i f consonants are thought o f as ad d in g arith ­ m etically to the time taken for the pronu n ciation o f a syllable. B ut further consideration reveals problem s. T h o u g h the com m on assum ption is that two consonants take abou t the same tim e to pronounce as the vow el th ey follow , and therefore double the duration o f the syllable, w hereas a single consonant is not sufficient to increase the length significantly (an assum p­ tion im probable in itself), it is difficult to exp lain w h y a long vow el or diphthong follow ed b y tw o or m ore consonants (such as mens) is no longer than a lon g vow el or dip h th on g alone (such as me). M oreover, how is one to exp lain the fact that consonants at the beginning o f a syllable p la y no p art in determ ining its quantity, w hile consonants at the end are o f crucial im portance? A ttem pts have been m ade to explain q uan tity in terms o f d uration from syllable-peak to syllablepeak, and not from syllable-boun dary to syllable-boun dary, none o f w hich, how ever, has succeeded in accou n tin g for the details o f the rules o f L a tin versification (see the discussion b y Z irin , 1970, pp. 5 8 -6 1). It seems likely, therefore, that the distinction betw een ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh ort’ syllables in L a tin w as not sim ply a question o f duration, but that a q u alitative difference o f some kind w as also involved. T h e rules for ascertaining q u an tity are now often given in a form w hich relates m ore closely to the phonetic ch aracter o f the tw o kinds o f syllable, and m akes the in ad eq u acy o f the theory o f q u an tity as d uration even m ore ap p aren t (see, for instance, A llen , 1965, pp. 89-90). T h e rules in this form depend on an initial procedure o f syllable-division (corres­ ponding, presum ably, to the division o f syllables in classical L a tin speech — see H ale, 1896), on the follow in g principles: o f two or more consonants at least the first goes w ith the preceding vow el (Jal-sus, fiam-ma ) , except in the case o f a plosive plus liquid w ithin a w ord, w hen either the first consonant goes w ith the precedin g vow el, or both consonants go w ith the follow ing vow el (at-rox or a-trox). U sin g the phonetic terms instead o f the traditional ones, and referring to a syllable that 10

PROBLEMS

OF

LATIN

PROSODY

ends in a vow el as an ‘ o p e n ’ syllable and one w hich ends in a consonant as a ‘ clo sed ’ syllable, the definition o f q u an tity can be stated as follow s: a closed syllable or an open syllable w ith a tense vow el is heavy, w hile an open syllable w ith a la x vow el is light. V arious theories o f q u an tity have been proposed w hich attem pt to find an alternative to duration as the most im por­ ta n t difference betw een ligh t and h e a vy syllables. Jakobson (i9 6 0 ), for instance, has suggested th at it is a m atter o f ‘ sim pler and less prom inent syllables opposed to those that are m ore co m p lex and p ro m in en t’ (p. 360). T h e notion o f ‘ p rom in en ce’ as the distinguishing characteristic is a m ore useful one than d uration , b u t ‘ co m p le x ity ’ does not seem sufficient to account for it. M a ro u zeau (1954, 1955) has elaborated a theory w hich proposes as a basis for the distinction betw een h e a vy and light syllables the ‘ suspension ’ w h ich occurs w hen consonants succeed one another, and although he does not solve all the problem s (see Z irin , 1970, pp. 6 1-4 ), he at least does not feel obliged to p rove th at h e a v y syllables are m arkedly longer than ligh t ones. W riters on the classical languages tend to emphasise that habits o f English speech can on ly obstruct our understanding o f q u a n tity, since it is a phenom enon foreign to the nature o f English. H ow ever, C hom sky and H alle (1968), in their analysis o f the rules governin g stress-placem ent in English, arrive at some conclusions w hich suggest a close connection betw een the p h on o logy o f English and th at o f L atin . T h e y refer to a lax vow el follow ed b y one or no consonants as a ‘ w eak clu ster’, and contrast this w ith a ‘ strong clu ster’, consisting o f a tense vow el follow ed b y one or no consonants, or o f a vow el (tense or lax) follow ed b y two or m ore consonants. T h e y can then state their first approxim ation to a stress rule for verbs as follows: ‘ P rim ary stress is p laced on the p en ultim ate syllable i f the final syllable term inates in a w eak cluster; a n d . . . a final strong cluster receives p rim ary stress’ (p. 70). T h e structure o f strong and w eak clusters corresponds exactly to the structure o f h eavy and lig h t syllables (C hom sky and H a lle ’s definitions do not, o f course, ap p ly to syllables after syllable-division, b ut to strings o f phon ological elem ents w ithin a w ord, so theirs is closer to the /

ELIZABETHAN

UNDERSTANDING

OF

LATIN

METRE

\

older accoun t o f q u an tity in L a tin ) ; and the role o f these strong and w eak clusters in determ ining stress placem en t in English is very close to th at o f h ea vy and ligh t syllables in determ ining the position o f the accen t in L atin , w here the accent occurs on the antepenultim ate i f the pen ultim ate is light (dominus - a proparoxytone w ord ), b u t on the p en ultim ate itself i f it is h eavy (honestus - a p aroxytone w ord ). W hen C hom sky and H alle refine their definition o f a w eak cluster (p. 83), the parallel becom es even m ore exact, since th ey allow an optional r, y , w , and sometimes I after the consonant (if a n y ). 1 It seems justifiable to conclude th at w h a t is trad itio n ally called ‘ q u a n tity ’ is not so m uch a m atter o f syllable duration as o f syllable structure — though it is a conclusion w h ich has yet to be w id ely accepted - and th at the differences o f structure according to w hich syllables are classified into two groups are not arbitrarily chosen features or variations in com plexity, b u t are fundam ental differences, often closely linked w ith the operation o f stress, and found in languages w hich ap p ear to have very little in com m on. T h e most valu ab le discussions o f accent and q u an tity in L a tin in these terms are those o f A llen (1964; 1965, pp. 89-92; 1969; 1973, ch. 4 ); and Z irin (1970) also concludes that quantity in general then was a more complicated matter than the ancient grammarians realized. It is not based upon a system of time values at all, but rather upon a distinction o f two syllable types, and a ratio of equivalence between them which, though it appeared to be basically durational, is only secondarily so, and finds its real basis in the relation between syllable and accent in the deeper morphophonemic structure of the language. (p. 79) Such an account o f quan tity, though it avoids m an y o f the com m on errors, b y no m eans solves the problem o f its use as a basis for verse: w e do not know how the difference betw een h eavy and light syllables was a ctu a lly perceived. T h a t it was referred to in terms o f syllable-len gth need not have a n y sig­ 1 For an interesting analysis of the physiological mechanisms involved in stress which has close affinities with this phonological account, see Stetson (1945, pp. 48-59; 1951). 12

PROBLEMS

OF

LATIN

PROSODY

n ific a n ce ; untrained users o f a lan gu age are notoriously in ­ accu rate in describing its phonetic detail, and the R o m an use o f ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh o rt’ m ay be no m ore accurate a reflection o f the true natu re o f their lan gu age than their use o f tonal terms to describe their accen t seems to have been. Presum ably, h e a vy syllables w ere som ehow felt to be m ore prom inent than lig h t; b u t w h eth er this w as because th ey received m ore stress, especially w hen in im portan t positions in verse, or w hether their difference in structure itself was som ehow perceived, is a question w h ich has not as yet been satisfactorily answered. The reading o f Latin verse

T h e second m ajor problem , closely associated w ith the first, is th at o f the a ctu al readin g aloud o f q uan titative verse. T h e stru ctu ral basis o f the lines is, as w e have seen, the patterned arrangem ent o f h ea vy and ligh t syllables; b ut the crucial question is w hether this pattern emerges n atu rally from a read in g o f the lines as i f th ey w ere prose, or w hether a special m ode o f d elivery is necessary to b rin g ou t w h at is only latent. I shall take as an exam ple the d actylic hexam eter, since this was the verse-form w h ich was m ost discussed and im itated b y the E lizab eth an experim enters in q uan titative verse. T h e d actylic h exam eter is m ade up o f six feet, o f w hich the first four are either d actyls ( — u“ ) or spondees ( ----- ), the fifth is gen erally a d actyl, and the last is a spondee (although, as in most types o f line, the q u a n tity o f the final syllable - w h ich I m ark throughout as lon g - can in fact v a r y ) . T h u s the line m ost often quoted in R enaissance discussions o f L a tin m etre, the first line o f the Aeneid, is scanned as fo llo w s: — uu|— u u | — —] — u u |— — arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris. T h e tech n ical term for the m etrical b eat (enunciated or im agined) on the first h e a vy syllable o f each foot in quantitative verse is ictus, and one w a y o f pronouncing this line is to give it w h a t is often called a ‘ stressed-ictus ’ readin g - in other words, to ignore the norm al p lacin g o f the word-stresses,1 and to stress 1 I am assuming that the Latin accent was a stress accent, though even this is a matter o f dispute, some authorities holding that it was a pitch accent (e.g. Beare, 1957, pp. 54-5)* W e have already noted that pitch plays an important

'

*3

ELIZABETHAN

UNDERSTANDING

OF

LATIN

METRE

V

instead the first syllable o f each foot, as follows (I m ark stressed syllables / and unstressed syllables x): /

x

x |/

X

X |/

x| /

x|

/

x

x

|/ x

arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris. T his gives a very definite rhythm , especially to ears accustom ed to stress-based metres like those o f English, and this is a m ethod w hich has long been com m on in schools. Som e scholars have attem pted a defence o f this m ethod not m erely as a ped agogic device b ut as the correct w ay o f read in g L a tin verse; am ong the more recent argum ents in favour o f some kind o f stressed-ictus reading have been those o f H erescu (i960), A llen (1964) (but see A llen , 1973, for a reconsideration o f this theory), and K o llm ann (1968). T h e more com m on, and convincing, argum ent, how ever, is that the norm al prose accentuation should be used w hen readin g a line o f L a tin verse, th u s: /

X

X 1/

X

/

I X

/\I X

X I

/

X

X

1/

X

arma virumque cano Troiae qui primus ab oris. T h e rules o f L a tin verse prevent the com plete coincidence o f accent and ictus in the great m ajority o f lines, rules such as those w hich govern the p lacin g o f caesuras (a caesura is a break betw een words occurring within a foot). In the hexam eter, for exam ple, a caesura m ust occur in the third foot, either after the first syllable (a ‘ stron g’ caesura), or, less com m only, after the second syllable o f a d actyl (a ‘ w e a k ’ caesura), in w hich case it is usually accom panied b y strong caesuras in the second and fourth feet. Furtherm ore, w ord-division seldom occurs at the end o f the second foot unless it contains a caesura. T h e effect o f these rules, given the fact th at no L a tin polysyllable is stressed on the final syllable, is to prevent the coincidence o f stress and ictus in the centre o f the lin e; thus in the line alread y quoted the strong caesura after cano ensures th at the stress does not fall on the first syllable o f the third foot. A t the end o f the line, how ever, the tendency o f the classical hexam eter to end in words o f two or three syllables (and to avoid an ending o f two part in stress, so the two kinds of accent are perhaps not as distinct as is often thought.

14

PROBLEMS

OF

LATIN

PROSODY

disyllables unless they are preceded b y a m onosyllable) has the opposite effect o f preven tin g a clash o f stress and ictus, for a stress w ill alw ays fall on the first syllable o f both final feet, and o n ly ve ry ra rely on the other syllables o f these feet.1 Proponents o f this m ethod o f read in g assume that, given the correct p ro­ n u n ciation o f L a tin , the q u an titative pattern (by w hich is often m eant a duration al pattern, thus en cou raging at times a ren d erin g w ith strict tim e-values w hich our discussion o f q u a n tity has show n to be unnecessary) w ill em erge in spite o f the fa ct th at the stresses do not fall in a corresponding pattern. T h e argu m en t is u sually taken further, and the ch angin g relation­ ship betw een accent and q u a n tity is seen as a deliberate device w h ereb y the expressive possibilities are g reatly increased. It is held th at the reader perceives the q uan titative p atterning and the occu rrence o f stresses sim ultaneously, and that the poet is able to use this in terp lay for poetic effects, w hile the basic rh yth m ic structure is asserted b y the coincidence at the end o f every line. T h is view o f the hexam eter was fu lly elaborated b y Jackson K n ig h t in 1939, and is further exem plified in W ilkinson (1963, pp. 8 9 -13 4 ), w here it is called the P u lse-A ccen t theory. W ilkinson quotes several instances o f the expressive use o f coincid ence and clash in classical L a tin hexam eters, three o f w h ich w ill serve to illustrate the theory. T h e com plete absence o f clashing feet is sometimes obtained b y a w eak third-foot caesura w ith o u t the accom p an yin g strong caesuras; thus the m etre contributes to the sense o f ease in the follow ing line from the Aeneid (iv. 486) (I have expanded W ilkin son’s notation o f stress and ictus to a m ore com plete in dication o f the scan sion ): / —

X

—

| /

—

X

X |

u U

/ X

— u

X I /

X X I /

U — UU —

X

X

U

u — —

1 /

X

spargens umida mella soporiferumque papaver sprinkling liquid honey and soporific poppy-seed. (P- 125) 1 Another popular metrical form in the Elizabethan imitations was the elegiac couplet, which also shows in its fully-developed classical form restrictionson word-length which determine the metrical character of its ending: the first line o f the couplet is a regular hexameter, and the second is a pentameter o f the form _ u u | _ u u | _ | _ u„ | _ uu| _ . T h e pentameter ends regularly with a disyllable, which ensures that, although the final syllable cannot receive a stress, the initial syllables o f the two previous dactyls in most cases do.

ELIZABETHAN

UNDERSTANDING

OF

LATIN

METRE

V T h e disruptive effect o f even a strong third-foot caesura can be m inim ised, as in the follow ing line (Aeneid v i. 523), w here the m om entary tension on quies is released in the sm ooth dactyls that follow : /

X

—

u

X I/ u

-

X

/\X

yj

u —

X X| /

X X I/

X

XI

/

u < j

Uncompromising imitation — Richard Stanyhurst T h e q u an titative experim ents produced very little verse w hich can be enjoyed b y the present-day reader in the same w a y as the better p oetry o f the native E lizabeth an tradition, and an understanding o f the conception o f m etre w hich la y behind the q u an titative m ovem ent, though it m ay enable us to account for the experim ents and obtain a clearer idea o f E lizabeth an habits o f thought, cannot m ake us appreciate English q uan titative verse in the same w a y as an educated E lizabeth an w ould have done. It is an ap proach to poetry too foreign to our ow n for us to ad o p t it ourselves, even i f w e acquired the necessary prosodic train in g; but I hope that m y account w ill m ake it more difficult to dismiss the experim ents as m ere folly, and that it w ill clear the w a y for a greater appreciation o f some o f the E liza ­ beth an verse in native metres w h ich exhibits the sam e concern w ith skilfully contrived artifice. I shall, how ever, discuss b riefly the participants in the m ovem ent in order to show how the theories and attitudes w e have been considering received expression in verse, and how th ey could be either em bodied in a pure form , or tem pered b y a concern w ith the qualities o f the n ative tradition. Som e o f the quan titive poets are m en w ho h ave a claim on our attention for their w ritings in other fields, and some o f the q uan titative verse is not w ithout interest, even i f for qualities other than those w h ich constitute its raison d'etre. M oreover, the history o f the m ovem ent shows a developm ent a w a y from the strict attem pt at a com p letely ‘ a rtificia l’ verse form in im itation o f L a tin tow ards a com prom ise w hich tries to incorporate the features adm ired in both classical and n ative traditions, a developm ent w hich is w orth tracing, as it is 165

QUANTITATIVE

POET§

AND

THEORISTS

p art o f the broad advan ce in m etrical technique and theory w h ich enabled the E lizabethans not on ly to la y the foundations o f m odern English accentual m etre, b u t also to p rod u ce some o f the greatest works using th at m etre. I should like to begin b y discussing S tan yhurst because his First Foure Bookes o f Virgil his Aeneis (1582) is, o f the extended experim ents in q uan titative m etre, the m ost thoroughgoing in im itating L atin m etre as it appeared to the average educated E lizabeth an. Som e lines from Book 1 w ill serve as an exam ple o f Stanyhurst’s m ethod and style (I give the scansion o f the first fiv e ; m y quotations are from va n der H a a r’s e d itio n ): -

-

-

-

I -

- I

-

ll-l

-

- I

-

II

-

-

I-

u

u I-

-

Theare stands far stretching a nouke uplandish: an Island I

-

I

-

-

l

-

u

Theare seat, with crabknob skrude stoans hath framed an haven. -

-

I -

_ | _ | | _ | _

- I

-

u u | -

-

This creeke with running passadge thee channel inhaunteth. -

u

u | -

- I -

ll-l

-

-

| - u u

Heere doe lye wyde scatterd and theare clives loftelye I~ r steaming, - u u |u u | _ || _ | _ - | u u |- And a brace of menacing ragd rocks skymounted abydeth. U nder having cabbans, where seas doo flitter in arches. W ith woods and thickets close coucht they be clothed al upward. A cel or a cabban by nature formed, is under, Freshe bubling fountayns and stoanseats carved ar inward : O f Nymphes thee Nunry, wheere sea tost navye remayning Needs not too grapple thee sands with flooke o f an anchor. Hither hath Aeneas with seavn ships gladlye repayred. (1.167-78) A s w e have seen, Stanyhurst’s D ed ication and Preface exem ­ plify m any o f the characteristics o f the E lizab eth an attitude to quan titative m etre that w e have discussed: though he appeals to the ear, it is really the printed w ord on w hich he bases his quantities, and he believes that he is free to choose the scansion o f m an y words, and to decide on his ow n spelling to achieve this. H e attaches im portance to the L a tin rules, though he does not feel absolutely bound b y th em ; for exam ple, he states that 166

RICHARD

STANYHURST

syllables ending in b, d, t, n, r, are short (Sm ith, i, 146), no d o u b t basing this p artly on L a tin p ractice (com pare, for instance, a rule from The Latine Grammar o f P . Ramus: ‘ A short syllable i s . . . everie vow ell before these letters, r, /, t, d, m, b, in the ende o f a w o r d ’, p. 9), b u t w hen this rule conflicts w ith the d iph­ thong rule in w ords like playne and youre he m akes a com prom ise: ‘ woordes eending in dipthongw ise w ould bee co m m o n ’ (Sm ith, 1, 146). In gen eral, how ever, Stan yhurst’s w ork is rem arkable for its closeness to the L a tin m odel, and its dis­ regard for a n y aural em bodim ent o f q u a n tity; for instance, he not o n ly follows the L a tin practice o f eliding a w ord-final vow el w hen follow ed b y an initial vow el (som ething w hich v e ry few q u an titative poets in English did), b u t in both rules and verse extends this, on the L a tin m odel, to words ending in a vow el + m (Sm ith, 1, 14 6 -7). As has been observed b y m any com m entators, his hexam eters are accen tu ally ve ry close to L a tin hexam eters, w ith coincidence o f stress and ictus infre­ q u en t in the first four feet o f the line, and n early alw ays present in the last tw o. N or is this achieved m erely b y attending to the accen tu al p a ttern ; it is an exact im itation o f the L atin practice o f p reven tin g coincidence in the first p art o f the line b y means o f an ob liga to ry caesura. In Stanyhurst’s hexam eters, the caesura is, as in L atin , n early alw ays the strong third-foot type (m arked || in the lines scanned above), and like the L a tin caesura it consists o f a w ord-break preceded b y a polysyllabic w ord - not m erely a pause in the line, as in English verse in the native tradition and, as w e shall see, in m an y o f the other q u an titative experim ents. T h e effect o f this in a L a tin line is to m ake coincidence im possible at this point, since the first syllable o f the foot, th ough b earin g the ictus, is the final syllable o f a p o lysyllabic w ord, and hence is unstressed. In order to prod u ce the same effect on the accentual structure o f an English line, the polysyllabic w ords have to be accen tually sim ilar to L a tin words (see p. 12 above), and this is the case in S tan y­ hurst’s Aeneis: the caesura is gen erally preceded b y a paroxytone or p roparoxytone w ord (in the lines scanned above, stretching, crabknob., running, scatterd and menacing). A t the end o f the line, too, Stanyhurst observes the m inutiae o f the L atin 167

QUANTITATIVE

POE' J ' S A N D

THEORISTS

hexam eter ru les: m onosyllables or pairs o f disyllables occu r very rarely in final position, and then on ly w hen preceded b y a m onosyllable. I f this rule is broken in L atin , it produces a clash in the final tw o feet w here coincidence is requ ired; Stanyhurst, how ever, does occasion ally break it, b u t w ithou t this effect, because he uses w h at he rarely uses elsewhere (and w h a t did not exist in L a tin ) : an oxytone w ord (one w ith a stress on the final syllab le). T h u s there are lines ending, ‘ girded abou t h e r ’ (1.499), ‘ truelye resolve m e ’ (11.163), an d ‘ s5tled am ong us ’ (11.186), w here the correct q uan titative and accen tual pattern is m aintained, even though the final w ord is a m ono­ syllable. In terms o f both accen tual structure and w ord-lengths, then, Stanyhurst achieves p ro b a b ly as accurate an im itation o f the L a tin hexam eter as is possible in an extended w ork. T o a m odern reader, the q uan titative structure o f Stanyhurst’s lines, on the other hand, seems to be far from the L atin o rig in a l: words like brace and lye in the lines above can h ard ly be regarded as short in any phonetic sense, nor does the term ina­ tion -ing, or the w ord the (even w hen spelt thee), seem long. But phonetic length is not in question here: the syllables are long and short in exactly the same w a y as the syllables o f V ir g il’s hexam eters, as read b y Stanyhurst, w ere lon g and short. R obinson pronounced the first syllable o f licet in the same w a y as Stanyhurst pronounced lye, and the first syllable o f calor w ith a vow el-sound like th at in Stan yhurst’s brace, though he scanned both as short (see above, p. 28), so w h y should an English q uantitative poet not do likew ise? T h o u g h the final syllable o f potestas is scanned long, it is pronounced b y R obinson w ith a lax a, so it is not surprising that Stanyhurst feels free to scan syllables w ith lax vow els as long (though for the most p art he prefers to scan them as short i f they are open and u n ­ stressed - unless he can use the diphthong rule, as in thee, or position, as in -ing, to justify, b y orthograp hical means, the length). Sim ilarly, his scansions o f violence (11.201) and vanitye (11.296) have parallels in the E lizabeth an pron u n ciation o f words like dies and claritas. A n d because digraphs, not d ip h ­ thongs, are regu larly lon g in L atin , it is on the form er that Stanyhurst bases w h a t he no d ou bt believes to be the ‘ diph168

RICHARD

STANYHURST

th on g rule ’ : the i o f violence in E lizab eth an pronunciation was, as it is to d ay, a diphthong, b ut because it is represented b y on ly one letter, Stanyhurst does not feel that it contradicts the rule o f vow el before vow el. O n the other hand, w hen he says th at playne, fayne and swayne are ‘ woordes eending in d ip th o n g w ise’ (Sm ith, i, 146) he is basing this on the spelling w h ich he gives, for the pronunciation o f these words was m onoph thongal (see D obson, 1968, 11, 594-603), and in his verses, syllables w ith digraphs are usually long (some o f the exceptions b ein g covered b y the rule o f final consonants). T hese exam ples o f non-phonetic q u a n tity could, o f course, be added to from every line o f the w o r k ; and the reason for this is not that Stanyhu rst h ad a w a yw a rd view o f q u an tity, but that he had a ve ry strict view : q u an tity in English was to be as close to q u a n tity in L a tin as he could m ake it. His four translations o f psalm s into iam b ic dim eters, elegiacs, asclepiads, and sapphics, and the ‘ P rayer too thee T r in ity e ’ in sapphics, all appended to his Aeneis, have sim ilar gen eral characteristics: using the sam e q u an titative system, the lines are close structural im ita­ tions o f the L atin m odels (except that the iam bics are accen t­ u a lly m ore regu lar), carefu lly observing rules o f caesura and w ord -length . T h u s his sapphics, for instance, have the ch ar­ acteristic accen tual rh yth m o f the H oratian sapphic, w h ich I shall discuss in C h ap ter 14. W h en w e try to assess Stan yhurst as a poet, w e face the same difficulties w h ich all the q u an titative poets present: w e cannot avoid, as w e read their verse, looking for the qualities that w e n orm ally valu e, some o f w h ich are con trad ictory to those the poet him self valu ed . W e can adm ire Stanyhurst for the skill w ith w hich he had p rod u ced an im itation o f L a tin verse as he kn ew it, b u t w e cannot take pleasure in this aspect o f his p oetry as w e read p age after p age o f it. W h en w e ignore the q u an titative basis o f the verse, and read it as w e w ou ld accentual verse o f the period - som ething w hich w ou ld not have pleased Stanyhurst - w e find that it has m om ents w hen v o ca b u la ry and rh yth m give it a vigorous directness, b u t th at an y passage o f several lines is m arred b y the w ild diction and the veering o f tone that this produces, the distorted w ord-order (som ething

169

QUANTITATIVE

POE^S

AND

THEORISTS

else w hich the L atin m odel justified, o f co u rse),1 the omissions and repetitions o f w ords, and, in gen eral, the feeling th at the lan gu age has been so w renched out o f shape as to have lost most o f the subtlety o f expression it possesses. It is difficult not to agree w ith the adverse ju d gem ents on the verse th at have repeatedly been expressed, b egin nin g w ith N ashe’s com m ents in his Preface to G reen e’s Menaphon (158 9 ),2 though failure to understand w h at Stanyhurst was attem ptin g (and the extent to w hich he succeeded) has often led to exaggerated attacks on the m an himself. It is w orth noting, how ever, th at m ost o f the E lizab eth an criticism is directed, deservedly, at the diction, not the m etre (though i f the latter could on ly be obtained by using such diction, the attem p t itself deserves at least some o f the scorn it re ceiv e d ); and w riters w ho actively supported the m ovem ent n atu rally found som ething to praise in S tan yhu rst’s m etre - Puttenham rem arks that Stanyhurst translated V irg il ‘ not u n co m m en d ab ly’ (Sm ith, 11, 117 ), though he later takes him to task for offending against decorum in his style (Sm ith, 11, 17 8 -9 ); H a rvey includes him in a list o f poets singled out for praise (Sm ith, 11, 234); and the Preservation poet expressed his reverence for him ‘ as a fine, as an exquisit a u th o r’, though he too seems w orried b y his style, and requests S tanyhurst ‘ w ith w ordes significant to refile, and finely to p o lish ’ his translation (p. 5). T o m odern ears, p articu larly, Stan yh u rst’s rhythm does not offend, for w e do not object to accentual irregu larity, and the hexam eters o f the Aeneis at least escape the d actylic tripping effect o f nineteenth-century accen tual hexam eters, and o f m an y o f the other Renaissance experim ents. T h e frequ ent use 1 Note, for instance, how he rearranges what would presumably be in prose ‘ Heere and theare doe lye wyde scatterd clives ’ in the fourth line quoted above no doubt to obtain the correct caesura. 2 Arber prints a selection o f criticism in his edition of Stanyhurst’s translation (1880), including Nashe’s attack on Stanyhurst’s ‘ carterlie varietie, as no hodge plowman in a countrie, but would have held as the extremitie of clownerie’ (p. xviii), Joseph H a ll’s description of ‘ the forged mint that did create/New coyne of words never articulate’ in Virgidemiarum (1597) (p. xx), and Southey’s reference to Stanyhurst as the ‘ common sewer of the language’ in Omniana (1812) (p. xxi). Twentieth-century criticism abounds with judgements as harsh: ‘ frantic gibberish’ (Saintsbury, 1906-10, 11, 173); ‘ that lumbering Jesuit’ (Rollins, Phoenix Nest, p. x x i); ‘ hideous hexameters ’ and ‘ monstrosities ’ (A. M . Clark, 1946, p. 120); ‘ a crank who played with quantitative verse’ (Pattison, 1948, p. 67).

170

RICHARD

STANYHURST

o f successive stresses (as in several o f the lines quoted above) give the rh yth m a m u scularity w h ich is prevented from becom ­ in g tu rgid b y the scattering o f unstressed syllables both alone an d in pairs — a flexib ility th at is w orlds a w a y from the p reva il­ in g iam b ic jo g -tro t o f the tim e, and th at could have been an elem ent in h igh ly successful verse, had it not been achieved at such cost to style and diction. M od ern critics sometimes find S tan yh u rst’s vigo u r refreshingly different from the artificiality and smoothness o f the trad itional E lizabeth an ly r ic : thus H ob sbau m includes Stan yhurst in his an th ology entitled Ten Elizabethan Poets (1969) (and, astonishingly, considers him to be one o f the seven m ajor E lizab eth an poets, p. 18), and L ucieS m ith ’s Penguin collection o f Elizabethan Verse (1965) contains q u an titative verse b y five poets, am ong them Stanyhurst, whose w ork is said to h ave ‘ an excitem ent o f rh yth m and o f la n g u a g e ’ (p. 19). (T h e iron y o f S tan yh u rst’s b eing praised for avoidin g th e artificiality he so valu ed and sought for need not be com m ented on.) R eeves and Seym our-Sm ith, w ho include Stan yh u rst in their New Canon o f English Poetry (1967), adm it th at m ost o f his experim ents are ‘ grotesquely b a d ’ but that at times th ey h a ve ‘ an authentic, i f quain t, p o w e r’ (p. 314), a ju d g em e n t w ith w hich I am in agreem ent. As one o f the diffi­ culties experienced b y the m odern reader w ho has no interest in the q u an titative basis o f S tan yhu rst’s verse is the id io­ syncratic spelling, I quote here some lines from Book 11 in H o b sb a u m ’s m odernised spelling, to illustrate Stanyhurst’s ca p a city as a p oet: His foes old Priamus through court and city beholding O n rusty shoulders slow clapped his unusual armour, A nd bootless morglay to his sides he belted unable. His life amidst the enemies with foin to finish he mindeth. In middle o f the palace, to skies broad all open, an altar Stood with green laurel through long antiquity shaded. Now to this hold Hecuba and her daughters mournful assembled In vain for succour gripping their mystical idols. Like doves in tempest clinging fast closely together W hen she saw Priamus youthly surcharged in armour 171

QUANTITATIVE

POEv TS A N D

THEORISTS

She said ‘ W hat madness thee leads, unfortunate husband, W ith these mails massive to be clogged? N ow whither I pray thee? O ur state eke and persons may not thus weakly be shielded. No, though my darling were present, couraged Hector. Here pitch thy fortress: let trust be reposed in altar, This shall us all succour, or we will jointly be murdered.’ This said, her old husband in sacred seat she reposed. (ed. Hobsbaum, p. 75)

172

12 Scholarship and sensitivity — Sir Philip Sidney

Sidney’s quantitative theory

S tan yh u rst was presu m ably u n aw are of, or unim pressed by, the argum ents o f the scholars w ho wished to reform the pron u n cia­ tion o f L a tin , for an unquestioning accep tan ce o f the traditional pronu nciation, and the conception o f L atin q u an tity that cam e w ith it, underlies his im itation. Sidney, on the other hand, was a personal friend o f some o f the lead in g scholars o f Europe, m an y o f w hom m ade va lu a b le contributions to the study o f L a tin prosody and pronunciation, and was h igh ly regarded for his ow n learn in g (for a full account see B uxton, 1964, chs. 2, 3 and 5). A m o n g those w ith w hom he becam e closely acquainted on his E u ropean travels o f 15 7 2 -5 was Sturm (see O sborn, 1972, pp. 90-2), whose p erceptive com m ents on q uantitative verse w ere discussed in C h ap ter 3. H e also m et and gained the respect o f both R am u s (see above, p. 122) and Stephanus, w ho later dedicated tw o works to Sid n ey (see Buxton, 1964, p p . 56 -9 and O sborn, 1972, pp. 88-9). T h e form er’s unusually sharp understanding o f the effect o f the Renaissance mis­ p ronu nciation o f L a tin and the la tter’s collection o f essays on the reform ed pronunciation o f the classical languages both received m ention in C h a p te r 6. E ven m ore significant was S id n e y’s friendship w ith Lipsius, another scholar w ho was concerned at the m ispronunciation o f L atin , and w ho saw clearly the need to give ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh ort’ vow els phonetic re a lity (see the discussion in C h a p ter 6 above). T h e y p rob ab ly first m et in 1577 in L o u vain , w here Lipsius held a professorship, and w ere together in L eyd en a few months before S id n ey’s d eath in 1586 (see V a n D orsten, 1962, pp. 119 -2 1 and Buxton, 173

QUANTITATIVE

POllTS AND

THEORISTS

1964, pp. 16 7-8 ). Lipsius’ D e Recta Pronunciatione Latinae Linguae (1586) opens w ith an Epistle D ed ica to ry to Sidney, b eginning: Quaeris a me serio, V ir illustris Philippe Sidneie, de Pronunciatu Latinae linguae quid sentiam? germanumne & verum hunc quo nunc utimur: an alium fuisse antiquitus, qui, ut multa alia, exoleverit tenebris ignorantiae obrutus & longi aevi.1 (sig. *2) S id n ey’s interest in the correct pronu nciation o f L a tin m ay have in itially been aroused b y L an gu et, w ho in several o f his letters to Sidney encouraged him to alter his English m anner o f pronunciation. W e find him , for instance, w ritin g to Sidney on 5 F eb ru ary 1574 (and see also his sim ilar rem arks on the same subject in other letters to Sidney quoted b y O sborn, 1972, pp. 130, 145-6, 161, and 203): Obsecro, ut aliquid tentes in emendanda tua pronuntiatione. Nihil erit excellenti tuo ingenio impossibile. Senties aliquid molestiae initio, sed mihi crede, non erit opus multo tempore ad earn rem perficiendam, & quia pauci ex vestris hominibus id curant, eo plus gloriae inde reportabis.2 (Epistolae, p. 53) It seems likely, then, that Sidney w ou ld have been conscious o f the incorrectness o f the sixteenth-century pronunciations o f L a tin and the conception o f L a tin m etre that this gave rise to, and that his attem pt to im itate classical metres w ou ld have com e closer to scholarly notions o f L atin verse than S tanyhu rst’s ; in particular, Sidney w ou ld not have been content w ith the to tally unphonetic nature o f q u an tity in S tanyhu rst’s w ork, since R am us, Lipsius and others h ad show n that q u an tity in classical R om e had been perceptible to the ear. W e do not have m uch in the w a y o f theory from S id n ey’s pen, but w h at we do have fulfils this expectation, as w ell as reflecting 1 ‘ Are you serious in asking me, illustrious Philip Sidney, what I think about the pronunciation o f the Latin language - whether the pronunciation which we now use is genuine and accurate, or whether there was a different one in ancient times which, like many other things, has passed away, overwhelmed b y the darkness of ignorance and the long lapse o f time ? ’ 2 ‘ I beg you to make some attempt to amend your pronunciation. N othing can be impossible for your excellent mind. A t first it will be rather troublesome, but, believe me, it will not take long to achieve; and since few o f your countrymen concern themselves with this, you will win all the more glory from it.’

174

SIR P H I L I P

SIDNEY

his p rob ab le acq uain tan ce w ith the activities o f the B a if A c a d e m y in Paris (see above, p. 122). In a passage w hich occurs in two o f the Arcadia m anuscripts, D icus and Lalus discuss the relative merits o f accentual/rhym ing and q u an tita­ tive verse, and D icu s’ defence o f the latter rests on the assum p­ tion th at it is b u ilt up o f p h on etically short and long syllables and hence m ore suitable for m usic. His descriptions o f long and short syllables, w h ich he believes should be m atched w ith lon g and short notes, are interesting, for they concentrate on the physical characteristics o f the sounds: in accen tual verse, he says, the musicke, finding it confused, is forced somtime to make a quaver o f that which is ruffe and heavy in the mouth, and at an other time to hould up in a long that which, being perchaunce but a light vowell, would be gone with a breath. {Poems, p. 390) A ‘ r o u g h ’ syllable is perhaps one w h ich is m ade lon g b y position; and a ‘ ligh t v o w e l’ also m ust refer to the pron u n cia­ tion. D icu s’ argum ent could have been underm ined b y a dem onstration o f the fact th at lon g and short notes go most h a p p ily w ith stressed and unstressed syllables, b ut Lalus is un aw are o f this, and his m ain defence is th at ‘ m usicke is a servaunt to p o e try ’ and it is therefore the m usician w ho needs to take care to m atch the verse. In the Apologie, Sidney upholds D icu s’ c la im : classical verse is ‘ m ore fit for M usick, both words an d tune observing q u a n tity ’ (Sm ith, 1, 204).1 A n d in his set o f rules for q u an titative verse, S id n ey’s concern w ith pron u n cia­ tion can be seen to be m ore than m erely theoretical. R u le 2 sta tes: ‘ Single consonantes com on ly shorte, b u t suche as have a d ow ble sow nde (as “ la c k ” , “ w ill” , “ t ill” ) or suche as the 1 T hough what we have of Sidney’s theory of quantitative verse is much concerned with music, we have no evidence that this manifested itself in any practical way. Buxton believes that Sidney’s experiments ‘ arose not from a pedantic classicism, which was far from Sidney’s thought, but from an attempt to accommodate verse to m usic’ (1964, p. 116 ); however, while this m ay to some extent be true, it seems unlikely that he would not have shared the purely poetic reasons that lay behind the experiments of Watson, Ascham, Spenser, H arvey and others especially in view o f his utilisation o f the findings of Renaissance scholarship in his system for assigning quantities. I f he had been involved in any attempts at sung quantitative verse, he would hav e come face to face with the inadequacies o f his quantitative system as an organisation of the durations o f English syllables

175

QUANTITATIVE

POEM' S A N D

THEORISTS

vow ell before dothe produce longe (as “ h a te ” , “ d e b a te ” ) ’ {Poems, p. 391). T h e first exception shows that it is unw ise to assume that S id n ey’s intention to base q u an tity on pron u n cia­ tion means that he was successful: he was subject to all the influences discussed earlier, and though he m ay have d raw n his theory and practice a little closer than most, he certain ly did not escape the tendency to confuse grap hic and phonetic em bodim ents o f lan gu age, or the assum ption that the L atin rules w ere concerned w ith real phonetic duration. B u t his second exception does show a different ap p roach from S tan y­ hurst’s, and gives a rule w hich does not ap p ear in the L atin gram m ars: a syllable w ith a tense vow el is long (though the w ay it is expressed - as if the vow el m ade the consonant long indicates that m uch im precision rem ains). R u le 4 m akes a sim ilar observation: ‘ Suche vow ells [are] longe as the pronounciacon makes longe (as “ g lo r y ” , “ la d y ” ), and suche like as seeame to have a dipthonge sownde (as “ sh o w ” , “ b lo w ” , “ d y e ” , “ h y e ” ) ’ {Poems, p. 391). T h o u g h w e cannot be certain that S id n ey’s pronunciation o f show and blow was really diphthongal (a m onophthongal pron un ciation was com m on in the late sixteenth century, especially w ith the vow el in final position - see Dobson, 1968, 11, 804-9), and that he was not m ore influenced by the spelling than the pronunciation, he is obviously attem pting to base q uan tity on the phonetic ch ar­ acter o f the syllables. His attitude tow ards elision also contrasts w ith Stanyhurst’s rigorous adherence to the L a tin m o d e l: although it is an im portan t p art o f L a tin scansion, Sidney, ap pealin g to the w a y English is actu ally spoken, feels free to em ploy elision or to allow hiatus ‘ as th advan taige o f the verse best serves; for so in our ordinarie speache w e do (for as w ell w e saye “ thow a r t ” as “ th ’a r t ” ) ’ {Poems, p. 39 1). S id n ey’s m ore pragm atic attitude to elision was to be far m ore p opu lar w ith later quantitative poets than S tanyhu rst’s dogm atism . - though it would have strengthened his tendency to identify stress and quantity, and it is quite a plausible explanation of his two poems in which complete coincidence is achieved, as such poems are much more suited to music than his more strict classical imitations. T w o other quantitative poets who were concerned with the problems of setting words to music were Bai’f and Campion, and it is significant that both show a high degree of coincidence in their quantitative verse.

176

SIR P H I L I P

SIDNEY

Sidneys quantitative practice

W h en it cam e to the actu al w ritin g o f quan titative verse, Sidneyh ad various possibilities before him . H e could have departed from his theory, and w orked only b y the L atin ru les; i f he had done so, his q u an titative verse w ould contain, as S tan yhurst’s does, m an y stressed syllables w ith tense vowels scanned as short. Som e lines from O A 13 ,1 ‘ L a d y , reservd b y the h ea v’ns to do pastors’ com p an y h o n n o r’ , in hexam eters, w ill show th at this is not s o : uu| - I - II - I u u I- u u| - Then do I thinke in deed, that better it is to be private ~ —I~ I — II — I — '->|— u uI — — In sorrows torments, then, tyed to the pompes of a pallace, 7 I'J u | - | | - | -I u u| Nurse inwarde maladyes, which have not scope to be breath’d out, -

-I -

- I - I I - I - - I - U U I - -

But perforce disgest, all bitter juices o f horror “ -Iu u| III“ I“ u u| In silence, from a man’s owne selfe with company robbed. _ _ | _ u u |||-| u u| u u |Better yet do I live, that though by my thoughts I be plunged - u uI7 - I l l _ l ~ ~ l ~ u '-'I — — Into m y live’s bondage, yet may disburden a passion - I u^| - || -| u u| u u| (Opprest with ruinouse conceites) by the helpe o f an outcrye. (lines 102-9) T h ese lines, in w hich the quantities are typ ical o f S id n ey’s experim ents, show how different his m ethod is from S tan y­ hu rst’s. T h e on ly occurrence o f a tense, stressed vow el in a short syllable is ruinouse in the last line, w here the L atin rule o f vow el before vow el overrides an y considerations o f sounds, and dem onstrates that Sid n ey is far from m aking ‘ p h o n e tic’ q u a n tity all-im portant. O therw ise (and this holds for all his q u an titative verse) stressed syllables contain ing tense vowels are long. It is evident that in addition to the L atin rules he took stress or the tenseness o f the vow els, or both, into consideration. T o decide w h ich o f these w as the m ore im portant, w e need to look at syllables in w hich these criteria con tradict one another, 1 I refer to Sidney’s poems by R ingler’s abbreviations - O A : O ld Arcadia; C S : Certain Sonnets - and all quotations are from R ingler’s edition.

! 77

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

that is, unstressed syllables w ith tense vow els and stressed syllables w ith la x vowels. W e find that the form er are n early alw ays short - in the lines above, over h a lf the short, un­ stressed syllables have vow els w hich arc tense — w hich w ould suggest that stress was o f greater im portance than tenseness. H ow ever, w e m ust rem em ber that, b y virtue o f the fact that they are unstressed, these vow els w ould tend to be shorter than sim ilar vowels in stressed syllables, and some o f them m igh t have been reduced to [a] in S id n ey’s p ronunciation, so it is possible that even in these cases he was deciding on the basis o f vow ellength, as he p ro b ab ly knew was the case in classical times. In the other test-case, stressed syllables w ith la x vow els are usually short w hen no L atin rule is operative, as in malady in the lines above. H ere vowel-tenseness is obviously a m ore im portant criterion than stress, and S idn ey had m an y L a tin precedents, not only in the E lizabeth an pronunciation (w hich m ade vowels o f this type lax w hatever the classical q u an tity), b u t also in the reconstructed classical pronunciation. W h a t is m ore, Sidney usually scans such syllables as short even w hen th ey occur in penultim ate position - exam ples in O A 13 are meritts (line 155) and prison (line 163) - even though the E lizab eth an pron u n cia­ tion o f L atin had no equivalents. It can be seen, then, that Sidney is closer to the original classical m odel than Stanyhurst, in that he attem pted to take the tenseness o f vow els into consideration in ascertaining the q u an tity o f syllables. But Sidney, too, had been through gram m ar school, and m any o f the old habits died hard. H e p ro b a b ly read L atin verse w ith an unclassical pronunciation to the end o f his life,1 so short syllables w ith tense vow els and long syllables w ith lax vowels follow ed b y single consonants w ould never have sounded w rong to him , though on inspection he m ight have decided that, b y classical standards, they w ere incorrect. B u t i f an 1 Though he m ay have followed Languet’s advice and adopted a continental pro­ nunciation in preference to the English one, as Lipsius’ dedication o f D e Recta Pronunciatione seems to suggest (see above, p. 174), these were, as we have seen, equally unclassical. K abell (i960) suggests that he used a French oxytone pro­ nunciation for words like mbnHment and cruell, making accent and quantity coincide completely (pp. 174-7), but there is no need to propose such an un­ likely explanation for scansions which, given the normal English pronunciation, are perfect imitations o f the Latin model.

178

SIR P H I L I P

SIDNEY

im p o rtan t L a tin rule was in danger, he had no hesitation in g oin g against his norm al p ractice, thus ruinouse above, and in the same poem , violence (line 12) and Dyamond (line 165). A n d he still felt free to include as R u le 7, ‘ Som e w ordcs cspccially sh o rt’ and as R u le 8, ‘ Particles used now e long, nowe sh o rtc’ {Poems, p. 3 9 1). In other w ords, he did not really escape from the com m on conception o f q u an tity as som ething separate from the sound o f the words, over w h ich the poet - or at least the first poet - has some degree o f control; though at the same tim e he no d ou bt believed, like m an y others, th at he was d ealing w ith real phonetic quantity. O d d ly enough, it was p ro b a b ly his sensitivity to the sound o f syllables w hich, w hile brin gin g him closer to the L atin m odel than Stanyhu rst in the m anner described above, at the sam e tim e took him further a w a y from it in other respects. W e have seen th at in accentual structure S tan yhu rst’s hexam eters are extrem ely close to L atin hexam eters (and the accentual structure was som ething the E lizabeth an pronunciation left u ndistorted). It w ill be seen from S id n ey’s lines quoted above th at his hexam eters have a h igh proportion o f coincidence in all parts o f the lin e : m ost o f the dactyls have a d actylic accentual p attern and the spondees are m ore often than not accentual trochees. A com parison o f 70 spondees o f S tanyhu rst’s w ith the sam e n u m ber o f S id n ey’s, takin g those w h ich occur in the first four feet o f a num ber o f lines selected at random (Stanyhurst, Aeneis, 1.169-80; iv .4 1 5 -2 5 ; Sidney, O A 13, 1 -7 , 42-50, 10 1 -7 , 15 5 -6 4 - 23 lines in Stanyhurst, 33 in Sidney, a differ­ ence w h ich itself reflects the lighter rhythm o f the la tter’s verse) yields the follow in g fig u res: Accentual pattern: Stanyhurst: Sidney:

/ x 48

x / 27 12

X X 19 5

// 11 5

T h u s Sid n ey is m uch closer to an accen tual im itation o f classical feet, and, b y using coincidence o f stress and ictus rath er than tryin g to have every long syllable stressed, he achieves a fairly regu lar accen tual rhythm . (In the sam e lines, S tanyhu rst has n early tw ice as m an y ‘ cla sh in g ’ dactyls as

QUANTITATIVE

POET'S A N D

THEORISTS

‘ co in cid in g ’, w hile Sidney has over five times as m an y o f the latter as the form er; in the final two feet, how ever, both poets have coincidence in n early every line.) T h is tendency in Sidney was no d ou bt p a rtly the result o f his attem p t to ju d g e q u an tity b y sound: w e have seen th at he scanned unstressed syllables as short i f L a tin rules did not ap p ly, presum ably because they did not sound ‘ lo n g ’ to him . B u t this decision alone w ould not result in lines as accen tu ally regu lar as S id n ey’s a re ,1 for there are m an y stressed syllables w ith la x vow els in English, w hich w ould be scanned short accordin g to S id n ey’s p ractice as described above, and w hich w ou ld therefore upset the regularity. Sid n ey’s q uan titative verse, how ever, uses these infrequ ently: final syllables and m onosyllables o f this type are nearly alw ays m ade long b y a follow ing consonant (exam ples in the lines quoted are then, have,yet), and p en ultim ate syllables often have an alternative E lizabeth an spelling w ith a doubled consonant w hich Sidney uses to obtain length b y position (exam ples in O A 13 are honnor, line 1, Pallace, line 4, and pittie, line 5). Sometimes, Sidney sim ply scans such syllables as lon g deserte (line 2), blemishe (line 67), and abolish (line 99) occu r in this poem - though this is rare. (W ords like abash (line 23), gather (line 63) and such (line 155) m ight appear to be sim ilar instances, b ut there are so m an y occurrences o f long syllables w ith la x vow el + ch, th, or sh th at S idney m ust have regarded these consonants as cap ab le o f h avin g a ‘ d ow ble so u n d e’ .) T his tendency to avoid m aking stressed syllables short no doubt resulted from a sense th at it sounded w ro n g to do so; either a single syllable scanned in this w a y seemed unsatisfactory, or a line w hich was accen tually irregu lar as a result o f such scansions was found unpleasant. A n tep en ultim ate syllables posed a greater p ro b lem : English words obeyed the same rule th at m ade the vowels in L a tin open stressed antepenultim ates la x in the E lizabeth an pronunciation, and the dou bling o f the follow ing 1 In calling quantitative lines ‘ accentually regular’ I mean that the accents fall in such a way as to give the effect of an accentual rhythm. This will usually mean a coincidence of stress and ictus, which in the hexameter gives a regular rhythm of six stresses separated by one or two unstressed syllables. I f the coincidence is between stress and length (so that quantitative spondees become accentual spondees), a less tripping rhythm is achieved in the hexameter, and this is used to good effect by some quantitative poets.

l8 o

SIR

PHILIP

SIDNEY

consonant was often u n accep tab le. M oreover, the penultim ate rule ensured th at the pen ultim ate syllable was short, so i f the w ord was to be used at all in hexam eter verse, either the ante­ pen ultim ate or the final syllable also had to be short. In some cases (like reverence in O A 13, line 5) final length b y position m eant th at there was no ch oice; and even w here there was, Sid n ey u sually preferred to scan the syllable w ith a la x vow el as short. H e could, o f course, have avoided such words alto­ gether (w hich he does in O A 32 and C S 25, poem s in w hich the feet have an accen tual as w ell as q uan titative basis, rendering stressed short syllables u n a cce p ta b le ); that he included them , and scanned them in this w a y, shows that he was far from intending an accentual im itation o f the classical m etre. S id n ey’s use o f caesura also differs from Stanyhurst’s, and again results in a m ore rh yth m ical line. A s can be seen in the exam p le given, he has a regu lar strong caesura, usually a pause m arked b y pu nctuation, w h ich to some extent lessens the accen tu al regu larity o f the lin es;1 b u t in w ell over h a lf his hexam eters, classical p ractice is contradicted b y a stressed syllable im m ed iately p reced in g the caesura - in other words, either a stressed m onosyllable (contrary to L atin practice) or an oxyton e p olysyllable (o f w hich L atin has n on e). T his means th at in S id n ey’s verse, unlike S tan yhu rst’s, the caesura loses entirely its function o f ensuring a clash o f stress and ictus in the first p a rt o f the line, and his likin g for an im m ed iately precedin g stress (for instance, 28 o f the first 35 lines o f O A 13 have stress in this position) alm ost m akes it into a device for ensuring coincidence. It is im possible to decide w ith an y certain ty w hat led to this preference for accen tual regu larity. It m ay be that in trying to ju d g e the q u an tity o f in dividu al syllables b y their sound he found that those w h ich w ere stressed n early alw ays seem ed long, and those th at w ere unstressed seem ed short (though he need not have consciously form ulated it in such term s, o f course). B ut this does not seem to be enough to accou n t for the m arked regu larity o f accentual structure, for 1 Here again, Stanyhurst seems to reflect English grammar-school traditions while Sidney is more influenced by continental discussions (see the definitions of caesura from Bird and Fabricius quoted above, p. 63, n. 3).

l8l

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

S idney could have avoided it i f he had really w ished to, by using L atin rules like position and vow el before vow el (w hich he obviously did not question, and w h ich w ould have yielded m an y long unstressed syllables and short stressed syllables i f he had desired them) to coun teract the predom in an t coin ci­ dence w hich a stress-based system o f q u an tity produces. It seems likely that S id n ey’s sensitivity to English p oetry and its rhythm s prevented him from w ritin g lines w ith the accen tual roughness o f Stanyhurst’s hexam eters (and w e cannot discount the possibility that som ewhere at the b ack o f his m ind, in spite o f his learning, was the rhythm o f the L a tin hexam eter as he had read it ‘ scanningly ’ at school). It m ay be, too, th at in the absence o f an agreed system o f quan titative prosody for English he wished his lines to be relatively easy to sca n ; i f this was his aim , he succeeded, for the reader knows th at tw o unstressed open syllables signal a d actyl, and the other, less com m on, types o f d actyl are also quite easy to recognise, in vo lvin g as they do words o f the maladyes or ruinouse type. A n d as the large m ajority o f long syllables are long b y position (and most o f the others have a tense, stressed vow el), scansion is m uch less p ain ­ ful a process than w ith S tan yhurst’s hexam eters. S idn ey was perhaps aw are that for the R om ans, read in g q u an titative verse w ith appreciation o f the m etre was not the laborious business that it w as for the Elizabethans. In the m atter o f final w ord-lengths, Sidney is again less faithful to the L atin m odel. O f the 175 lines o f O A 13, 49 go against the L a tin prohibition o f final m onosyllables, and considerably less than h a lf o f these are o f the type o f w hich classical verse was m ore tolerant, ending in two m onosyllables. O n the other hand, the poem has only one occurrence o f a line ending in the sequence m onosyllable + disyllable + disyllable, w hich was allow ed in L atin , and w h ich had been used by W atson (and was to be used b y later poets), and 110 occurrence o f the prohibited p air o f final disyllables w ith ou t a preceding m onosyllable. A n exam ination o f the accen tual structure o f the final feet o f Sid n ey’s lines reveals the reason for this in con ­ sistency in his degree o f faithfulness to the L atin m odel: w h atever length the words that m ake them up, these feet in 182

SIR

PHILIP

SIDNEY

S id n e y’s hexam eters, w ith very few exceptions, exhibit perfect coincidence. In English, unlike L atin , a final m onosyllable preced ed b y a disyllable can easily fit into the pattern / x x | / x or / x x | / /, and Sid n ey n early alw ays uses oxyton e disyllables to achieve this. O n the other hand, in neither English nor L atin can a final p air o f disyllables fit the pattern, as the first w ord m ust have a stressed syllable; and Sid n ey even avoids the varian t w ith a preceding m ono­ syllable, though the classical poets w ere prepared to accept this degree o f accen tu al irregu larity at line-ends. So here too, Sidney is p a yin g m ore attention to the accen tual rhythm o f his lines than to the L a tin ru les.1 T h e skill and pains th at have gone into the w ritin g o f verse w h ich meets such strict m etrical requirem ents cannot but be adm ired, b ut i f one reads the hexam eters o f O A 13 sim ply as p oetry, one finds little to enjoy. T h e accen tual structure is not regu lar enough to im p art an y sense o f controlled rhythm h oldin g the poem together, and not irregu lar enough to create a feeling o f energetic roughness, as sometimes happens in S tan yh u rst’s verse. T h e lines tend to spraw l formlessly, w ith the frequent double unstressed syllables o f the dactyls com ing like a distressing tic, and often brin gin g up the same words - ‘ o f a ’, ‘ to th e ’, ‘ w e d o ’, etc. - w h ich m ay be q u an titatively necessary, b ut in an y other terms are irritatin g padd in g. H o w ­ ever, S id n ey’s chosen m ethod o f classical im itation allows him to use m ore o f the English lan gu age as he finds it than S tan y­ hurst, and th ough the need to m eet the rigid requirem ents o f the m etre no d ou bt restricted his creativeness, he m anaged to achieve some quite effective verse, especially in lines 7 7 - 1 1 5 , 1 It is interesting to note that o f the very few lines o f O A 13 without coincidence in the final two feet, three (lines 12, 32, and 40) were emended b y the editors o f the 1593 Arcadia, even though this meant quite substantial changes in wording. Either o f the known editors, H ugh Sanford, a classical scholar o f some standing (see Godshalk, 1964, pp. 17 7-8 ), or the Countess o f Pembroke (whose sensitivity to accentual rhythm is evident in her own quantitative hexameters, to be discussed in ch. 14), could have been responsible. This, at least, seems to me to be the most likely explanation o f the variants; Ringler, in arguing that the 1593 edition embodies earlier authorial versions o f lines like 12 and 32 (Sidney, Poems, p. 374), has overlooked the importance o f the accentual pattern in quantitative hexameters, for his theory would mean that Sidney made alterations which turned perfectly correct hexameters into accentually incorrect ones.

183

QUANTITATIVE

POI NTS A N D

THEORISTS

o f w hich the follow ing are a sam ple (and see also the lines quoted above). C leofila is speaking: Let not a puppet abuse thy sprite, K ings’ Grownes do not helpe them From the cruell headache, nor shooes o f golde doo the gowt heale, And preciouse couches full oft are shak’t with a feaver. I f then a boddily evill in a boddily gloze be not hidden, Shall such morning deaws be an ease to the heate o f a love’s fire? Dorus. O glittring miseries o f man, if this be the fortune O f those fortune lulls, so small rest rests in a kingdome. W hat marvaile tho a Prince transforme himselfe to a Pastor? Come from marble bowers, many times the gay harbor o f anguish, Unto a silly caban, though weake, yet stronger against woes. (lines 84-93) Sidney's quantitative poems

I have used O A 13 to illustrate m y points about S id n ey’s q uantitative verse, as it is a long poem in hexam eters, b u t they ap p ly equ ally w ell to all o f his q uan titative experim ents, allow ing for a greater num ber o f errors in some poems w hich m ay be his earliest attem pts.1 O A 1 1, ‘ Fortune, N atu re, L ove, long have contended about m e ’, and O A 74, ‘ U n to the caitife w retch, w hom long affliction h o ld e th ’ , are in elegiacs, in w hich the hexam eters are ve ry sim ilar to those o f O A 13. T h e pentam eters are constructed on sim ilar principles: the classical insistence on final disyllables is not com plied w ith, but the classical tendency tow ards coincidence in the second hem istich is follow ed (especially in O A 11), coincidence in the first hem istich being less p redom in an t; the caesura is re gu larly a pause, and in most lines m arked b y p u n ctu atio n ; and S id n ey’s 1 T h e number of errors in the quantitative verse b y Sidney and others has often been exaggerated b y commentators as a result of their unawareness that a final vowel followed b y a word beginning with two consonants, though usually avoided (see p. 17, n. I above), was sometimes scanned as short in classical Latin, and that this was well known to Elizabethan grammarians - Lily, for instance, states that lengthening in this position is rare (1567, sig. G~]v). M a n y o f the ‘ errors of position’ that Ringler claims to find in Sidney’s quantitative verse are of this kind.

184

SIR

PHILIP

SIDNEY

p racticc in assigning quantities is the same. O A 12, ‘ I f mine eyes can speake to doo h a rty erran d e ’, consists o f six stanzas o f sapphics. H ere, as in his hexam eters, Sidney does not im itate the accen tu al structure o f the L atin sapphic, even though this, as w e shall see, was m ore regu lar than other m etres; he writes lines w h ich h a ve a certain am ount o f accen tual regu larity w h ile observing q u an tity strictly. T h e pattern is usually one o f stresses on the third, the fourth or fifth, the eighth, and the tenth or eleventh syllables, and the result is one o f the best o f the q u a n tita tive poems, n otab ly in lines 9 -2 4 : —

u —

—

—

u

u

—

u

—

—

Y et dying, and dead, doo we sing her honour; —

u

—

—

—

U

U

—

u

—

—

So become our tombes monuments o f her praise; —

u

—

—

—

U U —

u

—

—

So becomes our losse the triumph o f her gayne; —

U

U

— —

Hers be the glory. I f the senceless spheares doo yet hold a musique, I f the Swanne’s sweet voice be not heard, but at death, I f the mute timber when it hath the life lost, Yeldeth a lute’s tune, Axe the humane mindes priviledg’d so meanly, As that hatefull death can abridge them o f powre, W ith the voyce of truth to recorde to all worldes, T hat we be her spoiles? Thus not ending, endes the due praise o f her praise; Fleshly vaile consumes; but a soule hath his life, W hich is helde in love, love it is, that hath joynde Life to this our soule. T h e hexam eter echo-poem , O A 31 (‘ F aire R ocks, good ly rivers, sweet w oods, w hen shall I see p e a c e ? ’), shows the same characteristics as the other hexam eters, except that it has m ore errors, suggesting that it is an earlier w ork. O A 32, ‘ M y muse w h at ails this ardour ’ is an experim ent in com bining accentual and q u an titative structure: it scans correctly as anacreontic verse, but at the sam e tim e there is com plete coincidence, and as the m etre is one o f regu lar alternations (w— ^— w----- ), the result is regu larly rh yth m ical (though the stiffness o f the accen tu al pattern produces a rath er dull poem ). T h is bears out w h a t I have alrea d y su ggested : that Sidney, unlike Stanyhurst, 185

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

was concerned to find a w ay o f w riting q u an titative verse w h ich did not go against the norm al English h ab it o f regu lar accentuation , and later q u an titative poets, especially C am p ion , follow ed up S id n ey’s experim ent w ith some succcssful verse o f this kind. T h e ‘ P h aleu ciackes’ o f O A 33, ‘ R eason, tell m e thy m ind, i f here be reason ’, w ere p ro b a b ly also influential D avison’s Poetical Rhapsody o f 1602-21 contains several poems in this m etre. T h e y have the usual regu lar caesura in the form o f a pause, but their accentual structure is less regu lar than most o f S idney’s q uan titative verse. O A 34, ‘ O sweet woods the delight o f solitarin es! ’ (in asclepiads) seems to be another earlier w o rk ; it has several errors o f scansion, and does not take vowel-tenseness into consideration as do the other poems (snaky, duty, title w ou ld be lon g in later works, and opinions, vanity, paradise p ro b a b ly short). N evertheless, it is an interesting poem , and one o f the most successful o f the experim ents as poetry in its ow n right, p a rtly because o f its subtly varied accentual patterns w hich avoid the d actylic tic o f the h ex a ­ meters because o f the frequent stressed short syllables and the high proportion o f m onosyllables, and p a rtly because the lack o f strong rhythm s suits the gen tly languorous tone. T h e poem b eg in s: —

—

—

u

u —

—

u

u

—

u

—

O sweet woods the delight of solitarines! —

—

— u

u

—

—

u u —u

—

O how much I do like your solitarines! —

—

—

u

u

—

—

u u —u —

Where man’s mind hath a freed consideration —

—

•— u

u

•—

—

u

u —

u —

O f goodnes to receive lovely direction. Where senses do behold th’order o f heav’nly hoste, And wise thoughts do behold what the creator is : Contemplation here holdeth his only seate: Bownded with no limitts, borne with a wing o f hope Clymes even unto the starres, Nature is under it. Nought disturbs thy quiet, all to thy service yeeld, Each sight draws on a thought, thought mother of scicnce, Sweet birds kindly do graunt harmony unto thee, Faire trees’ shade is enough fortification, Nor danger to thy selfe if be not in thy selfe. (lines 1-14) 186

SIR

PHILIP

SIDNEY

In clu d ed in Certain Sonnets are four quan titative poems, p rob ­ a b ly w ritten at about the sam e tim e as the Old Arcadia,three o f w h ich , C S 5 in sapphics and C S 13 and C S 14 in elegiacs, are b ro ad ly sim ilar to the O ld Arcadia poems, though they are less accom plished as q uan titative verse. C S 25, ‘ W hen to m y deadlie p le a su re ’, is in aristophanics, and like O A 32 com bines accentual and q u an tita tive verse in a sim ple m etrical schem e, though, interestingly, S idney includes w ords w here short syllables are stressed because o f the L a tin vow el before vow el rule (violence and tied), thus upsetting the accentual pattern (as C am p ion was to do in verse o f a sim ilar kind). H ow ever, the poem ends effectively w ith regu lar coincidence o f stress and q u an tity in a rh y th m ica lly insistent m onosyllabic c lim a x : —

U U -

u

—

—

Thus do I fall to rise thus, —

U U

—

u —

—

Thus do I dye to live thus, —

u

U

—

u

—

—

Changed to a change, I change not. Thus may I not be from y o u : Thus be my senses on you: Thus what I thinke is o f y o u : Thus what I seeke is in you: A ll what I am, it is you. (lines 27-34) S id n e y’s q uan titative verse is not the detailed and accurate im itation o f L atin verse that H endrickson (1949) and John T hom p son (1961) see it as, nor does it ignore n atu ral length and accent as M c K e rro w claim s (1901, p. 179 ); it is an extended attem pt to introduce into English p oetry those features o f classical verse so highly adm ired b y the Elizabethans, w ithout losing too m u ch o f the rh yth m ical q u a lity o f traditional E nglish verse. T h e num erous types o f m etre used, and the different systems em ployed in m aking im itations, show a m ind consciously and carefu lly experim enting w ith the poetic potential o f the English langu age, m eeting w ith some success, b ut m ore failure, and no d ou bt discovering m uch in the process. T h e lessons learn ed w ere to benefit not only Sidney in his la te r verse, but E lizab eth an p oetry in general. 187

V

13 cOur new famous enterprise’ — Spenser, Harvey and Fraunce Stanyhurst, in spite o f the praise he received from some d ed i­ cated English hexam etrists, w as not a figure to initiate a new poetic m ovem en t; S idney ve ry clearly was. A lth o u g h H a rvey refers co yly to ‘ the good A u n g ell (w hether it w ere G ab rieli or some other) that put so good a m o tio n ’ into the heads o f Sidney and D yer, he fu lly realises how m uch their exam ple w ill ‘ helpe forw arde our new fam ous enterprise for the E xch an gin g o f Barbarous and B alductum R ym es w ith A rtificial V erse s’ (Sm ith, i, 101). F raun ce merits consideration in this ch apter as an exam ple o f Sid n ey’s pow erful influence, and as one o f the few q uantitative poets w ho, w ithin the terms the m ovem ent set itself, achieved success. Spenser too, ow ed his b rie f passion for quantitative versifying to Sidney, but the im portance o f the verse in the Spenser/H arvey letters, ap art from our natural interest in the m inor w ritings o f a great poet, lies in its direct exem plification o f the forces at w ork behind the m ovem ent, untem pered b y thoroughgoing adherence to the L a tin m odel or b y sensitivity to the result as English poetry. Spenser and Harvey

O n ly a few poems in q uan titative metres b y Spenser and H a rv e y survive, chiefly in the letters w h ich passed betw een them in 1579-80, and w hich w ere published b y H a rv e y in the latter year (Sm ith, 1, 8 7 -12 2 ). H a rv e y ’s Letter Book also contains a poem in q uan titative hexam eters w ritten before 1580, p art o f w h ich was published in his Foure Letters o f 1592 (p. 61). In spite o f num erous m odern assertions that th ey represented opposed approaches to the question o f classical metres in 188

SPENSER,

HARVEY

AND

FRAUNCE

E n g lish ,1 Spenser and H a rv e y w rote b ro a d ly the same kind o f q u an titative verse. F id elity to the L a tin m odel varies: the L atin rules o f position, vow el before vow el, and d ip hthong (that is, d igraph) are observed quite carefully, th ough there are errors; the classical practice w ith regard to caesura is sometimes follow ed, som etim es not; and the restrictions on final w ordlengths p la y no p a rt at all. Vow el-tenseness is not taken into consideration as it is b y S id n ey; unstressed, lax vowels occu r in lon g syllables w ith ou t position in the verse o f both writers, and stressed, tense vow els occu r in short syllables. L ike Stanyhurst, then, th ey im itate L atin q u an tity as they understood it, but unlike him , their im itation o f classical metres does not extend to details o f verse-structure. A n d unlike both Stanyhurst and Sidney, th ey do not ensure, b y the use o f position and other u n m istakable rules, that the scansion is never in doubt. N or is it alw ays m erely a question o f two e q u ally correct scansions: the second line o f Spenser’s ‘ Iam b icu m T rim e tru m ’ (Sm ith, i, 9 0 -1), for instance, is a syllable short. T his must have w orried D avison, for he prints the poem in his Poetical Rhapsody (1, 233) w ith ‘ T h o u g h t’ at the end o f the second line instead o f at the b egin n in g o f the third (w hich H a rv e y had criticized because it has tw o extra syllables). T h e problem is not solved, how ever, for the rearrangem en t results in the scansion ‘ flying th o u g h t’, w h ich contradicts both the rule o f vow el before vow el and that o f position. W ith regard to accent, the exam ples o f neither w riter reveal a clear decision as to its role in q uan titative verse. H a rv e y ’s hexam eters are certain ly not based on coincidence as is often claim ed ; in gen eral they exh ib it less coincidence than S id n e y’s b u t m ore than S tan yh u rst’s (excludin g the final two feet, w hich, follow ing classical precedent, are n early alw ays a ccen tu ally regu lar). H ow ever, this practice varies from poem to p oem : ‘ E n com ium L a u r i’ (Sm ith, 1, 10 6-7), for instance, has a large num ber o f lines w ith com plete stress/ictus coincidence, w here ‘ A N e w Yeeres G ift’ (Sm ith, 1, 104-5) has few , especially after the first four lines. It w ou ld seem th at he d id not p a y m u ch attention to stress - except, as w e saw in 1 See, for instance, Om ond (1921, pp. 10 -12 ), Ham er (1930, p. 297), W illcock (* 934 > P-

5 )> and

Lewis ( ! 954 > PP-

364~5)-

189

QUANTITATIVE

POvE T S A N D

THEORISTS

C h ap ter 10, w hen it revealed the q u an tity o f the pen ultim ate syllable. T hus the diphthong rule has no force in the p en ­ u ltim ate o f unkodpeased and travailer (Sm ith, i, 108, 109), and H a rv e y ’s brother - whose q uan titative verse is quoted in H a rv e y ’s second letter - scans majestic w ith a short penultim ate in spite o f position (Sm ith, 1, 113 ). Spenser’s few hexam eters also va ry from a line o f com plete coincidence to lines w ith several clashes o f accent and ictus in the first four feet. T h e q uantitative verse o f both Spenser and H a rvey gives the impression o f hasty com position,1 and ju d g e d as poetry, only Spenser’s ‘ Iam bicu m T rim e tru m ’ is o f any valu e, perhaps because, being w h at H a rvey calls a ‘ m ixte and licentious I a m b i c k e ’ , it imposes less severe restraints than most q u an tita­ tive metres — in every foot except the last, the short m ora can be replaced b y a long or two shorts, and the lon g b y two shorts. I give the first nine lines, w ith one possible scansion o f the first fo u r : u

—|

u

—

|

u

—J —

— J u

u

—I u

—

Unhappie Verse, the witnesse o f m y unhappie state, -I- | u-_ |-| o - | o _ M ake thy selfe flutt[e]ring wings of thy fast flying —

—

|

u

—

|—

u

u

j

—

-

| U

U

—

I

u

—

Thought, and fly forth unto m y Love, wheresoever she b e : u

— |u—

|

—

—

|u

- |u

—

Iu

—

Whether lying reastlesse in heavy bedde, or else Sitting so cheerelesse at the cheerfull boorde, or else Playing alone carelesse on hir heavenlie Virginals. I f in Bed, tell hir that m y eyes can take no reste; I f at Boorde, tell hir that m y mouth can eate no meate; I f at hir Virginals, tel hir I can heare no mirth. (Smith, 1, 90-1) T h e tone o f H a rv e y ’s poems is light-hearted, b ut there is no suggestion that he is attem pting to ridicule the m ovem ent, as is sometimes claim ed ; w h at m attered to H a rv e y was the m etre, and the metre was som ething quite separate from the intonation and rhythm (in the m odern sense) o f the lines. T h e follow ing 1

T h e quantitative verse b y H arvey’s brother is more easily scanned, more correct, and accentually more regular than Gabriel’s; it observes caesura more carefully; and it appears to use vowel-tenseness to a greater degree in the determination of quantities.

190

SPENSER,

HARVEY

AND

FRAUNCE

h exam eter lines from his ‘ S p eculum T u sca n ism i’ exhibit his ch aracteristic tone: - I - I - II I I - u u| No man but Minion, Stowtc Lowte, Plaine swayne, quoth a Lording: -

-

|

-

u u | -

I | - | -

- I

-

u u

| -

-

No wordes but valorous, no workes but woomanish oncly. - - | - uu| - || u u | - | _ u u |For life Magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in shew, I uu|-|j uu|_ | _ u u | - In deede most frivolous, not a looke but Tuscanish alwayes: His cringing side necke, Eyes glauncing, Fisnamie smirking, W ith forefinger kisse, and brave embrace to the footewarde: Largebelled Kodpeas’d Dublet, unkodpeased halfe hose, Straite to the dock, like a shirte, and close to the britch, like a diveling, A little Apish Hatte, cowched fast to the pate, like an O yster.. . (Smith, i, 107-8) W e have alread y discussed the m ain points w hich em erge from the d ebate betw een Spenser and H a rvey, and it is clear from H a rv e y ’s exam ples that he was not proposing a ra d ica lly d ifferent kind o f verse from Spenser’s or S id n ey’s. H e does, h ow ever, end his second letter on ‘ reform ed versifyin g’ w ith a gen eral discussion o f q u an tity, in w h ich he puts forw ard the sensible view th at it is not the L atin m odel that is all-im portant, but the extent to w hich it applies to English. A n d he lays the foundation for an adequ ate theory o f accentual m etre w hen he states: Peradventure, uppon the diligent survewe and examination of Particulars, some the like Analogie and Uniformity might be founde oute in some other respecte, that shoulde as universally and Canonic­ ally holde amongst us as Position doeth with the Latines and Greekes. (Smith, 1, 121) H e does not, how ever, think o f stress as the feature o f English w h ich determ ines ‘ lo n g ’ and ‘ sh o rt’, and these hints o f an English prosody faithful to the phonetic actualities o f the lan gu a ge w ere never elaborated , nor did they issue in practice. B ut in these few paragraph s, H a rv e y is m ovin g a w ay from the conception o f m etre w h ich w as the n atu ral outcom e o f a gram m ar-school education, tow ards the conception w h ich was I91

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

to form the basis o f the great E lizab eth an achievem ents in poetry. Abraham Fraunce

F raun ce was the most prolific and the most p op u lar o f the E lizabeth an q uan titative poets. A ll his verse is in hexam eters (except for a few asclepiads in Tvychurch, 1591, sig. Y^r-v), and all o f it is o f basically the sam e typ e (though one departure from his norm al practice is the use o f p artial rh ym e in the section o f Emanuel on the N a tiv ity ). M y exam ples w ill be from Amyntas (1587), availab le in a convenient m odern edition (ed. D ickey, 1967), published together w ith the L a tin original b y W atson. His m ethod is close to that o f his m aster, S id n ey: scrupulous attention to the rules o f position, vo w el before vow el, diphthong (w hich m eant that all digraphs w ere long, w ith the exception o f -ie and -ee in w ord-final position), and pen ultim ate syllab le; a relaxation o f the L a tin rules o f elision; scansion o f unstressed open syllables as short and stressed syllables w ith tense vowels as lon g; regu lar occurrence o f a strong third-foot caesura m arked b y a pause, and ve ry often b y pun ctuatio n ; and the liberal use o f un m istakably long syllables to m ake scansion certain and relatively sim ple. L ik e Sidney, he usually ensures that a stressed syllable w ith a la x vow el is m ade long b y position, and he has the sam e kind o f excep tion : stressed antepenultim ates like jbitiles and miseries and, m ore rarely, stressed initial syllables o f disyllables, like pretie and manie. In one respect his im itation is stricter than S id n ey’s : he obeys L a tin restrictions on final w ord-length. T w o disyllables seldom occur, and then on ly w ith a precedin g m onosyllable in the approved m anner, as first used in English b y W atson (thus ‘ thy b on y P h ilis’, vm .10 4 and ‘ so m anie o ffrin gs’, ix .7 8 ) ; and, as in L atin , the few final m onosyllables are n early alw ays the second o f a pair. H e does not go as far as Stanyhurst in im itat­ ing the L a tin m odel, how ever; he uses oxytones freely in the first part o f the line, and does not observe pre-caesural restric­ tions on w ord-length and accen tual position, b u t in the final feet he does eschew oxytones - like Stanyhurst, the only exceptions are the rare occasions on w hich he breaks the rule o f 192

SPENSER,

HARVEY

AND

FRAUNCE

final w ord -len gth (thus ‘I beseech th e e ’, n.85 and ‘ live not alSne th u s’ , 11.88). His concern w ith the details o f scansion can be seen in the list o f ‘ faults escap ed ’ w here, for exam ple, dutragious is ch an ged to outragius to avoid a short ‘ d ip h th o n g ’ in the last syllable, wofull to woful to avoid the contradiction o f position (p. x v i). F ra u n ce ’s hexam eters are, i f an ythin g, accen tually even more regu la r than S id n ey’s. T h e rh yth m is upset occasionally by the short stressed syllables, b ut these are not very frequent (and often accen tual regu larity is preserved even though the accen tu al ‘ fe e t’ do not tally w ith the quan titative ones). N e a rly all the dactyls are regu lar accen tual dactyls, and very often the short syllables are o f the type w e have alread y m et in S id n e y’s hexam eters (‘ o f t h e ’, ‘ to b e ’, ‘ b y th e ’ , e tc.); further­ m ore, the large m ajority o f spondees are accentual trochees. F ra u n ce ’s tend ency to use rhetorical figures w h ich involve m uch repetition adds to the rh yth m ic m onotony - the follow ing lines from Amyntas are b y no m eans u n ty p ic a l: -

-

I-

_

|_ II _ |

|

-

u u | - -

But Pan, and Fauni, but garden greene of Amintas, -

-

|

-

-

|

-

II-

|

-

-

|

-

u u|-

-

But you springs, and dales, and woods aye wont to be silent, -

- I -

_ | _ | | _ | _

- I -

u u | - -

Leave o f your mourning, lie give you leave to be silent, Leave to be silent stil, give you me leave to bee mourning, Leave to be mourning, stil, let this most heavie departure, This death o f Phillis bring wished death to Amintas. (vii.102-7) H ow ever, one does not have to seek far to find the reasons for F ra u n ce ’s success. H e com bined a strict quan titative pattern, g iv in g the intellectual satisfaction dem anded b y adherents to q u an titative verse w ithou t too m uch exertion being necessary, w ith a rh yth m icality w h ich prevented his poetry from sounding too different from English verse in the native tradition, but w h ich at the sam e tim e linked it w ith the ‘ sca n n in g ly’ read hexam eter in L atin . A n d at times he puts the accen tual rhythm to good effect in verse w h ich w ou ld m ake rew ard in g readin g i f the m etrical exigencies d id not constantly result in slight distortions o f lan gu age and the insertion o f unnecessary syllables. 193

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

C om pare the accen tual irregularities o f the first tw elve lines quoted below , w here the w ren chin g o f stresses m irrors A m yn ta s’ state o f m ind as he contem plates the loss o f Phillis, w ith the m uch lighter and m ore regu lar rhythm o f the passage that follows a few lines later, in w hich A m yn tas im agines a h eaven ly re u n io n : O dismal deaths day, with black stone still to be noted, Wherein no sunne shin’d, no comfort came fro the heavens, Wherein clustred clouds had cov’red lightsome Olympus, Wherein no sweete bird could finde any jo y to be chirping, Wherein loathsome snakes from dens were loath to be creeping, Wherein foule skriche owles did make a detestable howling, And from chimney top gave woful signes o f a mischiefe. O first day o f death, last day o f life to Amintas, W hich no day shal drive from soule and hart of Amintas, T il Neptune dry’de up withdrawe his fiudds fro the fishes, And skaled fishes live naked along by the sea shore, T ill starrs fal to the ground, til light harts leap to Olympus. _ (vm. 75-86) Thou that abridgest breath, thou daughter dear to the darknes, Cutt this thread o f life, dispatch and bring mee to darknes, Infernal darknes, fit place for mournful Amintas. So shal Amintas walke and talke in darksome Avernus, So shal Amintas love with Phillis againe be renued, In fields Elysian Phillis shal live with Amintas. Thus do I wish and pray, this praying is but a pratling, And these wishing words but a blast, but a winde, but a whistling. Dye then Amyntas Dye, for dead is thy bony Phillis. (vm.96-104) T h e m ovem ent produced little verse as good as this - w h ich is, o f course, more a censure o f the m ovem ent than a com m en d a­ tion o f Fraunce.

194

14 ----

-

■

Four approaches to quantitative verse

It is possible at this stage to characterise four differing approaches to English q u an titative verse, to the first three o f w h ich w e can attach the nam es o f Stanyhurst, Spenser/H arvey, and Sid n ey respectively, though the distinctions are far from clear-cut, and m ore than one m ethod can be present in a single poem . Before going on to consider the further developm ents in the w ork o f Puttenham and C am p ion , I shall look briefly at the other q u an titative poets in terms o f this fram ew ork. The Stanyhurst approach

S tan yh u rst’s strict im itation o f the L atin accentual patterns and restrictions on w ord-lengths, and his indifference to the tense­ ness o f vowels, constitute one approach, w h ich m akes very few concessions to the n ative tradition o f English verse and w hich rigorously follows through the im plications o f the school trainin g in L a tin prosody, w ithou t consideration o f scholarly view s on the subject. T h e result is so far rem oved from English verse in the n ative tradition and requires such a severe pruning o f the norm al English vo ca b u la ry, that it is not surprising that Stanyhurst had no successors. Jam es Sandford could perhaps be considered as a predecessor on the strength o f his eight-line poem in English elegiacs, published as one o f ‘ G ertayne Poem es D ed icated to the Q ueenes moste excellente M a jestie ’ at the end o f the second edition (1576) o f his translation o f G u iccia rd in i’s Uhore di Ricreatione, entitled Houres o f recreation. T h e poem is itself a translation o f Estienne J o d e lle ’s quantitative poem ‘ A M a d a m e M arg u erite de F ra n c e ’ , d atin g from 1559 {Oeuvres, ed. M a rty -L a v ea u x , 11, 107), w hich Sandford prints, 195

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

w ith ou t acknow ledgem ent, and w ith the slight alterations m ade necessary b y the change in dedicatee, together w ith q u an titative translations in G reek, L atin , Italian and English (sig. Q,3*>-4)It contains m an y stressed tense vowels in short position, and there are some signs o f an attem pt to im itate the L a tin accentual pattern, though w ith nothing like S tan yhurst’s strictness. The Spenserj Harvey approach

H ow ever, it w ould p ro b a b ly be m ore accurate to consider Sandford as belonging to the second g rou p : those w ho are concerned above all w ith the L a tin rules o f quantity, and w ho attem pt neither an im itation o f the L atin stress-patterns nor an approxim ation to the stress-rhythms o f the native English tradition. W e have seen that A scham had no clear conception o f the nature o f accent and its function in verse, and it seems likely that in the fifteen lines o f q uan titative verse w h ich appear in Toxophilus (1545) (English Works, pp. 4, 12, 14, 16, 24, 38, 64, 72, 75, 89, 92, 93, 104), he was not fu lly conscious o f the stress-patterns he was producin g, for some o f the lines have sim ilarities to the classical stress-pattern and others (probably the ones w hich had a greater influence on later writers) have a strong rhythm as a result o f coincidence. C om p are, for exam ple, the follow ing two h exam eters: — — I — u u |— u u| - — I — U UI — — W hat thing wants quiet and meri rest endures but a smal while. (P- 4 ) — u u | —I — u >-l| — — I — u uI — U p to the pap his stringe dyd he pul, his shafte to the hard heed.

(p. 104)

T h e first has the classical pattern o f clash follow ed b y corre­ spondence, w hile the second has coincidence throughout. T h ere are too few exam ples from A sch am ’s pen to enable one to estimate the extent to w h ich he took vowel-tenseness into account in ascertaining quantities, but it is possible th at it did p lay a p art - in w hich case, A scham looks forw ard to the m ethod Sid n ey was to use. H ow ever, the others w ho belong to this group clearly ignore vowel-tenseness. W e have looked at Spenser and H arvey, whose q u an titative verse exhibits the 196

FOUR

APPROACHES

TO

QUANTITATIVE

VERSE

sam e accen tu al variations as A sch a m ’s, and ignores vow eltenseness; and the two lines b y W atson also seem to be o f this type. Son g no. xxiii in B y rd ’s Psalmes, Sonets, & songs o f sadnes and pietie (1588) is in hexam eters in w h ich neither accen t nor vowel-tenseness bears a consistent relation to q u an tity (in fact, there is less coincidence in the final two feet o f the lines than in the first four) - b u t because it has a setting w hich m irrors e xactly the quantities o f the verse, long syllables havin g tw ice the duration o f short, this is a special case (though the w ords and m usic w ould have been better suited if stress had coincided w ith q u a n tity ): -

-

| -

uu|-

-

I -

- I

-

U

u|-

-

Constant Penelope, sends to thee carelesse Ulisses, -

u

u

|

-

-

I

-

-

I

-

-

|

-

u

u

I—

-

write not againe, but come sweet mate, thy self to revive me. -

u

u |

—

—

I

—

— I

—

u

u

I —

U

U

I—

—

T roy we do much envie, we desolate lost ladies o f Greece: u u |— I— U U I — Not Priamus, nor yet all T roy can us recompence make. O h, that he had when he first toke shipping to Lacedemon, that adulter I meane, had ben o’rewhelmed with waters: Then had I not lien now all alone, thus quivering for cold, nor used this complaint, nor have thought the day to be so long. (sig. E3) Perhaps w e can also p lace in this group the w ork o f Francis S abie (Pan's Pipe, 1595, a set o f poems in quan titative verse o f various kinds, and Flora’s Fortune, also 1595, contain ing a q u an titative echo-poem on sig. B4 r-v), though m ore because o f its in eptitude than for a n y p articu lar m ethod. T h ere are m a n y echoes o f F raun ce in the hexam eters, b ut in the elegiacs and asclepiads som ething ap p roach in g the classical accentual patterns is achieved. T h e re is little consistency, how ever; not on ly does S abie fail to take vowel-tenseness and stress into accou n t, b u t he also frequ en tly contradicts the L a tin rules o f q u a n tity - even position, w hich the other quantitative poets observe scrupulously. T h e poets in this group, then, w rite quan titative verse o f a type w h ich follows n a tu ra lly from the school training in L atin prosody and the conception o f m etre w hich arises out o f i t : as far as m etre is concerned, the m ain requirem ent is that each *97

QUANTITATIVE

POETS AND

THEORISTS

line can be scanned according to the L a tin rules, w ithou t alternative scansions being possible. T h e question o f stress is a secondary one, i f it arises consciously as a question at all. T h e easily recognisable stress-pattern o f the final two feet o f the L a tin hexam eter m eant th at an English line w hich lacked it sounded w rong, b ut ap art from that, little th ou ght was given to accentual structure. H ow ever, in the attem pt to assign q u an tity to an individu al syllable, the operation o f the p en ulti­ m ate rule and the greater prom inence o f stressed syllables m eant that more often than not stress and q u an tity w ould coincide, resulting in m any hexam eters w ith the ch aracter­ istic d actylic-and-trochaic rhythm . The Sidneian approach

Poets in the third group, how ever, seem to be m ore conscious o f the accentual structure o f the line, as w ell as givin g vow eltenseness an im portant role in decisions about q uan tity. T h e result, as w e have seen in Sidney and Fraun ce, is verse w hich is characterised by a rhythm ical regu larity w h ich places it closer to the native tradition, b u t w hich never becom es com plete regu larity, because the concern for the L atin rules and for vowel-tenseness often results in clashes o f accent and quan tity. T his m ethod proved very popular, com bining as it did qualities o f both traditions, w hile appearing in its approxim ation to phonetic quantity to em body the theory o f q uan titative verse to a greater extent than L a tin verse itself. A lth o u g h F ra u n ce’s Amyntas was w ritten later than S id n ey’s quan titative verse (and took the rhythm icality o f the English hexam eter a stage further), it appeared in prin t six years earlier, so it is not surprising that the first poets outside the Sidney circle to take up this m ethod should be closer to F raun ce than to Sidney. W e b b e ’s Discourse (S m ith,i, 226-302) actu ally appeared a year before Amyntas, and as he does not include Fraunce (or Sidney) in his discussion o f English poets, it m ight seem th at his hexam eters, w h ich have a h igh proportion o f coincidence throughout and seem to take vowel-tenseness into consideration, are w ritten according to a scheme o f his ow n m aking. H ow ever, it is possible th at W eb b e had read some o f F rau n ce’s verse in m anuscript, for, h avin g 198

FOUR

APPROACHES

TO

QUANTITATIVE

VERSE

m entioned A b ra h a m F lem ing - him self an opponent o f ‘ foolish, rim e ’ w ho attem pted verse in ‘ due proportion and m easu re’ (Bucoliks, 1589, sig. A41?), though not, as has been claim ed , in q u an titative verse - he rem ark s: T o whom I would heere adjoyne one of hys name, whom I know to have excelled as well in all kinde o f learning as in Poetry most especially, and would appeare so if the dainty morselles and fine poeticall inventions of hys were as common abroade as I knowe they be among some of hys freendes. (Smith, 1, 244) I f it is the Christian nam e to w h ich W eb b e is referring, Fraunce (w ho, like W eb b e, h ad been at St J o h n ’s) seems a likely can d id ate. W e should rem em ber th at because o f the im portance o f au th o rity as a m eans o f ascertaining quan tity, it w ou ld be quite possible for a poet w ritin g w ith a kn ow ledge o f Sid n ey’s or F ra u n ce ’s w ork to ap p ear to take vowel-tenseness into acco u n t in the same w a y w ith ou t in fact doing this consciously, an d this m a y be true o f W eb b , whose attitude to authority is evid en t in his attem pts to accou n t for quantities he has ‘ m arked in o th ers’ (Sm ith, 1, 282). His translation o f V ir g il’s first and second Eclogues begins as follows (the full text is given in A rb e r’s edition o f the Discourse, pp. 73- 9 ) : -uu| - uu I - II— I— |— u uI — Tityrus, happilie thou lyste tumbling under a beech tree, - u u |- | - | | - | I — VV I “ A ll in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie chaunting: - | u u| II- I - I W e, poore soules, goe to wracke, and from these coastes be u|

-

-

remooved, _ - | - I II - I - 1-1 ' - ' I ^ I — And fro our pastures sweete: thou T ityr, at ease in a shade

plott, -

-

l -

u u1 -

II -

I-

-I

-

°

u l" r

M akst thicke groves to resound with songes of brave Amanlhs. (Smith, 1, 284) (N ote how , in the fourth line, W eb b e ensures through his spelling ‘ fr o 5 the elision b y L a tin rule o f an un w anted vow el.) I shall discuss W e b b e ’s sapphics later in the chapter, along w ith other English sapphics, as this m etre poses som ew hat different problem s. 199

QUANTITATIVE

POETS

AND

THEORISTS

A n oth er w riter w ho produced h igh ly rh yth m ical hexam eters before the publication o f S id n ey’s q u an titative verse was R o b ert G reene, w ho included them in his prose works Greenes Mourning Garment (1590) (Works, ix , 15 1-3 , 159 -62 ), Greenes Farewell to Folly (1591) (Works, ix , 293-4), and M am illia (1593) (Works, 11, 219-20 ). T h e y are all in a F raun cian vein, as the follow ing lines, the opening o f ‘ H exam etra A l e x i s in lau dem R o s a m u n d i ’ from Greenes Mourning Garment, w ill indicate: — u ,J| — - I 208-9; praise of, 124, 132-3, 136, 145, 162, 170, 171, 199, 228-g; rules important in, 64, 138-58; writers and sup­ porters of, see under individual names in French, 121-2, 123, 125-6, 195-6 in German, I25n, 126 in Hungarian, 126 in Italian, 123, 125, 126, 196 in Latin, 7 - 20 ; accentual pattern of, 14 -16, 18-19, 32-3, 48-51, 78 -g, 83-5, 92, gg, iog, i3on, i36n, 167-8, i6g, I7g, 195-6, 207, 2 12 -1 4 ; attacks on, 40, 232-3; continental reading of, 78-9, 83-5; durational reading of, 15, 3 5-7, I36n; Elizabethan reading of, 30- 40 ; non-aural appreciation of, 21, 63-4, 66-7, 76 -7, 80-1, 116, 120; prose-accent reading of, i 4 “ i6 > 3 1, 32- 5 . 4 9 - 5 °> 78- 9 , 83, 85; Pulse-Accent theory of, 15; Scottish reading of, 4on; stressed-ictus reading of, 13-14, 3 1 - 2) 37~4 ° , 4 8, 75>I43n> i82, ig3; see also schools, Elizabethan, Latin in in Russian, 126 in Scandinavian languages, 126 in Spanish, 123, 126 see also alcaics; anacreontics; aristophanics; arsis and thesis; asclepiads; caeseura; elegiacs; elision; hexameters; iambics; ictus; phalaecian hendecasyllables; quantity; sapphics quantity and accent: associated with, 12, 157, 178, 180, 181, ig2, ig8, 203, 205, 208 -11, 2 14 -15 , 2 1 7 -ig , 220-7; identified with, 47, 51, 52, 72 - 5 , h i , 143-52 arbitrariness of rules of, 75, 138 - 40, 152-8 b y authority, 37, 38, 49, 64-6, 139, i4g, 16 1-2 , igg, 218, 222, 223; see also quantity, determined by first poets continental discussions of, 78-85, ! 73“ 4 . b y derivation, 64, 14 1-3 , 145, i4g,

223n

256

determined by first poets, 62, 66, i36n, 152 - 7 , 16 1-2 , 179, 217 b y diphthong, 64, 141, 142, 161, 167, 168-9, ! 76, i8g, 190, 192, 193, 222, 223, 224 as duration: in ancient accounts, 8; in modern accounts, 8, 10, 137, i43n; in Renaissance accounts, 8, 35~7> 61 - 3 , 79, 83, 99, 158, 175) 176 o f final syllables, 65, 143, 159, 167, 169, 222 hidden, 71, 79, 82-3 by nature, 9-10 , 66, 81, 127 no phonetic basis for, 1 ig , 128; in English quantitative verse, 136, !38, i53» 158760, 160-2, 166-g, 178—g ; in Latin, 46, 4 7 -8 , 62-3, 66-7, 71, 72, 7 5 -7 , 79-85, 138, i 53> JS6" 8 by penultimate rule: in Elizabethan schools, 47, 5 1 -2 , 65, 73 - 4 ; in English quantitative verse, *43-52, 161, 181, igo, ig2, ig8, 221, 222, 223 phonetic basis for, 128; in English quantitative verse, I2gn, i4on, ! 4 3 n> *5 7 , ! 5 9 > 174- 8 , 180-2, 191, 198, 202, 208, 2 1 7 - i g , 222, 224; in Latin, 9, 10 -13, 235; sec also quantity, and accent, as duration, and vowel-tenseness b y position, 9—10, 127; in continen­ tal writings, 79, 8 1 -2 ; in Elizabethan schools, 64, 66, 70-2; in English quantitative verse, 140-1, 145-6, 157, 161, 168, 180-1, 182, i84n, 189-90, 192, 193, 197, 2 17 -1 8 , 220-4 passim b y preposition, 64, 143, 202 by ‘ R egula ’, 64, 143 as a visual phenomenon, 52, 8g, 99, 109, 118 -19 , 14°> 14^> 158-60,

175-6 by vowel before vowel, 64, 80, 141, 1 77; 179, 187, 192, 221, 223 and vowel-length, 69- 72 , 79-83 and vowel-tenseness: associated with, 11, 176, 177-8 , 181, 182, igon, 192, ig8-203 passim, 207, 215, 2 2 1-4 ; unrelated to, 72, 137, 161, 168, 186, i8g, ig 6 -7 , 208-10, 220 see also Latin, pronunciation of (Elizabethan) quantity, vowel, see long and short vowels; tense and lax vowels Quintilian, 34, 96, 229, 230

INDEX Ramus, Petrus on accent, 56, 5 7 -8 influence in England, 60, 12 1-2, 124, 128, 173-4 Latine Grammar, 46, 56, 5 7-8 , 62, 66, 71, 143, 167 and orthography, ii3 n , 121 on quantity, 62, 66, 71, 80 -1, 143, 167 Scholae Grammaticae, 80, 81 Scholae in Liberales Artes, 80 support for quantitative movement, 12 1-2 , 128 D e Veris Sonis, 80-1 R apin, Nicolas, 126 R athm ell, J. C . A ., 133 R aven, D . S., 9, 16 R eeve, Edm und, 74 Reeves, James, 171 Renieri, Antonio, 125 Reshoulde, James, 130, 213 Return from Parnassus, 134 rhyme attacks on, 92, 94, 96, 109, 129 defences of, 1, 95, 110, 228, 230, 231, 232 etym ology of, 94-6 rhythmici, 8 rhythmos, 17, 95, 1 1 1 -1 2 rhythmus, 229-30, 231 Ringler, W . A ., 140, 158-9, 183^ i84n, 201 R ingw ald, Bartolomaus, 126 Robinson, Robert, 26-9, 32, 3 6 -7, 60, 168 Robotham , John, 25, 50, 67-8 , 70 Rogers, Daniel, 122 Rollins, H . E., 17cm Rostvig, Maren-Sofie, 115 Row land, D . B., 11 7 -18 Russian, quantitative verse in, 126 S., R ., see Phoenix Nest, The Sabie, Francis, 132, 197, 2 15 -1 6 Sacerdos, 39 St John’s College, see Cam bridge Saintsbury, George, i7n , 14cm, i43n, 17cm Salesbury, W illiam, 23n, 26 Salinas, Francisco de, 126 Salter, Tim othy, 2 ign Sandford, James, 123, 129-30, 195-6, 206, 207 Sanford, H ugh, i83n sapphics English, i2gn, 132, 133, 169, 185, 187, ig g , 202, 207-8, 2 1 1 -1 6 , 220 Latin, 18 -19 , 2 1 1 -1 2

Sargeaunt, John, 23n Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 23, 231 Scaliger, Julius Caesar, 83 Scandinavian languages, quantitative verse in, 126 ‘ Scheinprosodie ’, 118n schools, Elizabethan age o f entry, 44 East Retford curriculum, 44-5 Harrow rules, 45 Latin in, 32, 33-4, 37-8, 41 - 7 7 , i8 in ; scansion exercises, 37-8, 42, 49> 63-4, 67, 72 M erchant Taylors’, i4g Shrewsbury, 41 Seaton, Ethel, 106, 123 Serjeantson, M . S., 22 Seymour-Smith, M artin, 171 Shawcross, J. T ., i2g Shearman, John, 117 Short, R . W ., 2 ign short vowels, see long and short vowels Sidney, Sir Philip accentual verse by, 4, 106, 115, 126, 187, 230 on accentual verse, I, 175 A pologiefor Poetrie, A n, 1, 121, 13g, 175 Arcardia, 106, 130, 131, 132, 140, ! 75> 177-8 7, 203 Certain Sonnets, 187 education of, 41, 66 European connections of, 78, 122, . 173-4 • ™ influence of, 124, 130-4 passim, 188, ig2, ig8-207 passim, 2 ig -2 o , 222, 223, 224 and Latin pronunciation, 173-4, 178 and music, 122, i75n praise of, 132, 207, 22g quantitative verse by, 4, 130, 13 1-2 , 140, 17 7 - 8 7 , 213, 216 on quantitative verse, 1, i3g, 140,

14

143-55 i 58 -9

173- 6, 179

Simmias Rhodius, g6 Sledd, James, 70 Smetius, Henricus, 66, 71 Smith, G . Gregory, 2, 127, 133, i48n Smith, J. P., 68 Smith, Sir Thomas, 24-5 Smotrickij, Meletij, 126 Sorrowes Joy, 134, 211 Southey, Robert, i2gn, i70n Spanish, quantitative verse in, 123, 126 Spenser, Edmund, 231—2 accentual verse by, 4, 104-5, 115, 126

257

INDEX Spenser, Edmund— (contd.) quantitative verse by, 4, 12911, 130, 188- 90 , 204, 206 on quantitative verse, 105, 131,

138-9 >H6-9

Shepheardes Calender, 104-5, 2 1 5 Stanyhurst, Richard on accentual verse, 102 attacks on, 170 -1, 228-9 influence of, 134, 195 praise of, 132, 145, 170-1 quantitative verse by, 121, 131, 166- 72 , 173-85 passim, 209, 213 on quantitative verse, 102, 113, 124, i 4 1 - 3) H 5> 149- 5 0 , 156, 159, 166-7, l6 9 . Stephanus, Henricus, 84, 173 Stetson, R . H ., I2n Stone, W . J., I29n, i4on, 14311 Stowe, A . M ., 44 stress, see accent Sturm, Johann, 32-3, 50, 173 Suetonius, 80 Surrey, H enry Howard, Earl of, 98, 109, 110 Tabourot, Estienne, 123 Taille, Jacques de la, 126 Talaeus, Audomarus, 58, 123, 230, 232 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, i2gn tense and lax vowels, 9, 11, 2 1-3 , 26- 9 , 3 6-7, 6gn see also long and short vowels; quantity, and vowel-tenseness thesis, see arsis and thesis Thomas, Thomas, 71 Thomasson, Lieutenant-Golonel de, 12511 Thompson, John, 160, 187 Tolomei, Claudio, 123, 125 Tory, Geo fry, 23n T u ve, Rosemond, io8n Underdown, M . E. I., i25n V an Dorsten, J. A ., 122, 173 Varro, 80 Versi, et regole de la nuova poesia toscana, 123, 125

V ignola, Giacomo da, 117 Virgil, 32, iog, 131, 16 6-172, ig g Vitruvius, 117 Vivian, P., 31, 2 ig n Vossius, Gerardus Joannes, 63n, 73 Vossius, Isaac, 3on Vossler, K arl, 21 Walker, A ., gon Walker, John, 22 Walther, Rudolph, see Gualtherus, Rodolphus W altz, R ., 17 Watson, Foster, 41, 44, 45 Watson, Thomas (author of Amyntas),

I 3 1. : 92

.

Watson, Thomas (Bishop of Lincoln) as an authority, i4g, 182, ig2, 218, .223 . . discusses quantitative verse, g3, 100, 122, 127, 130 hexameters by, 112, 122, 124, i2g, 136, 160-2, ig7 W ebbe, W illiam on accentual verse, g5, 100, 102-3, 107, 110 quantitative verse by, 131, 154, 198- 9 , 215 on quantitative verse, n g , 124, 131,

W

!53-5> ! 5 8 > t 9 8 - 9

W echel, Andre, 122 Weismiller, E. R ., i2g W estaway, F. W ., i7n Wilkinson, L. P., 15 -16 , 18, 23n, 212 Willcock, G . D ., 75, gon, i36n, 137, . I5 9 >.l8 9n Willes, Richard, 106, 115, 120 Wilson, H . S., 122 Wither, George, 22g Wittkower, Rudolf, 1 1 6 -1 7 Wolsey, Thomas, 43 Woodford, Samuel, 203, 204 W yatt, William, 70 Yates, Frances A ., 121 Young, Alison, 2 ig n Zarlino, Gioseffo, 74 Zirin, R . A ., 8, 10, 11, 12 Zirmunskij, V ., 126

258